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A  UTHOR: 


ABBOT,  FRANCIS 
ELLINGWOOD 


TITLE: 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC 
PHILOSOPHY  OR  . 

PLACE: 

BOSTON 

DA  TE: 

1906 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 
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Abbot,  Frands  EUingwood,  188fr-1908. 

The  syllogistic  philosophy  or  Prolegomena  to  science,  by 
Francis  Ellingwood  Abbot  ^.  Boston,  Little,  Brown,  and 
company,  1906, 


2t.   211- 


Copy  in  Philosophy.     1906  • 


^Philosophy.   ^Ontolocj. 


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GIVEN   BY 


THE   SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


OB 


PROLEGOMENA  TO  SCIENCE 


THE 


SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


OB 


PROLEGOMENA   TO   SCIENCE 


BY 


FRANCIS  ELLINGWOOD  ABBOT,  Ph.D. 


Knowing  is  the  measure  of  the  man.    By  how 
much  we  kuow,  so  much  we  are. 

Ralph  Waldo  Emkbsov. 

The  man  who  knows  not  that  he  knows  not  aught- 
He  18  a  fool  ;  no  light  shall  ever  ro«. ;.  him. 
Who  knows  he  knows  not  and  would  fain  be  taught  — 
He  18  but  simple  ;  fake  thou  him  and  teaoh  him. 
But  whoso,  knowing,  knows  not  that  he  knows  — 
He  is  asleep  ;  go  thou  to  him  and  wake  him. 
The  truly  wise  both  knows  and  knows  he  knows  — 
Cleave  thou  to  him  and  never  more  forsake  him. 

Arabian  Proverb, 


IN  TWO   VOLUMES 

Vol.  I 


BOSTON 
LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND  COMPANY 

1906 


Copyright^  1906^ 
Bt  E.  Stanley  Abbot. 


All  rights  reserved 


Poblished  October,  1906 


THE  UNIVERSITV    PRESS,   CAMBRIDGE,  U.  9.  A. 


li 


TO    THE    MEMORY 


OF 


MY    WIFE 

IN   WHOSE   DIVINE   BEAUTY   OF   CHARACTER,    LIFE 

AND    SOUL 


O 

> 


^O 


I 


I   FOUND   THE    GOD    I    SOUGHT 


Oct.  18,  1839  :  Oct.  23,  1893 


tt 


She  made  home  happy^  and  was  all  the  world  to  her  own  ** 


I 

I     ~ 


f 

c 
r- 


400412 


c» 


CONTENTS 

VOLUME  ONE 

Chapter  ^^®* 

I.   The  Axiom  of  Philosophy 1 

II.   "  CoGiTO,  ergo  Sum  " ^^ 

in.   The  I :   Empirical,  Rational,  Real     ....  93 

rV.   Threefold  Origin  of  the  Real  I 115 

V.  Traditional    Origin    of    Self-consciousness: 

Ego  and  Non-Ego ^28 

VI.   Origin  of  the  Tradition;   The  Aristotelian 

Paradox ^^^ 

VII.   The  Two  Theories  of  Universals      ....  171 

VIII.   Transition  from  the  I  to  the  We     ....  210 

IX.   The  Transition  in  Kant 215 

X.   The  Transition  in  Fichte 225 

XI.   The    Transition    in    Hegel  :    The    Hegelian 

Paradox 261 

TABLES 
Table 

I.   Hume  and  Kant ^^^ 

IL   Unreal  I  and  Real  I ^l^ 

III.       I.  Empirical  Antithesis  of  I  and  Not-I  ...  142 

IL   Rational  Antithesis  of  We  and  Not-We     .  143 

III.   Irrational  Antithesis  of  I  and  Not-We      .  143 


Jl 


PREFACE 


In  bequeathing  to  my  fellow-men  the  best  I  have  to  give 
them  in  the  results  of  a  lifetime  of  patient  and  single-eyed 
search  for  the  highest  truth,  which  at  last  have  been 
wrought  into  the  form  of  a  new  system  of  philosophy 
grounded  on  the  principle  of  absolute  logic  that  whatever  is 
evolved  as  consequent  must  he  involved  as  antecedent)  I  hope 
they  will  not  deem  it  a  mark  of  obtrusive  self-feeling  if  I 
leave  on  record  here  a  true  and  simple  statement  of  its 
origin,  both  as  a  thought-system  and  as  a  biographical  fact. 
No  one  can  be  more  conscious  than  I  am  of  its  manifest 
deficiencies  of  content  and  faults  of  form,  and  no  one  could 
regret  these  more  than  I  do.  Yet  at  the  opening  of  the 
twentieth  century  I  conceive  it  to  be  the  supreme  need  of 
the  human  spirit  to  understand  that  the  mechanical  phi- 
losophy of  mere  evolution  —  the  evolution  without  involu- 
tion, which  is  the  half-truth  more  dangerous  than  a  lie  — 
is  but  a  step  towards  the  organic  philosophy  of  evolution 
through  involution,  as  itself  but  a  step  towards  the  spirit- 
ual philosophy  of  the  identity  in  difference  of  evolution 
and  involution  as  the  continuity  of  Being  in  the  Absolute 

Ethical  I. 

This  is  the  philosophy  whose  foundation  is  the  absolute 
nature  of  the  syllogism  as  necessary  relational  equation  of 
the  involved  and  the  evolved  in  the  world-process  —  that 
universal  and  eternal  self-realization  of  Being  through 
Knowing  in  Doing  which  determines  the  immanent  and 
necessary  relational  constitution  of  the  world  itself  to  be 
that  of  the  Absolute  Ethical  I.  It  is  the  grounding  of  this 
philosophy  in  the  absolute  nature  of  the  syllogistic  process, 


r 


vm 


PREFACE 


as  at  once  the  Apriori  of  Being,  the  Apriori  of  Truth,  and 
the  Apriori  of  Eight,  and  as  itself  the  identity  in  difference 
of  evolution  and  involution,  which  renders  it  a  system  of 
philosophical  objectivism  or  scientific  realism,  in  distinction 
from  all  systems  of  philosophical  subjectivism,  whether 
as  subjective,  critical,  or  absolute  idealism,  and  which  not 
only  justifies  but  requires  its  name  as  the  Syllogistic 
Philosophy. 

Nothing  short  of  this  grounding  of  philosophy  in  abso- 
lute logic  can  possibly  fit  it  to  be  itself  the  ground  of 
absolute  religion;  and  nothing  short  of  absolute  religion, 
as  free  and  intelligent  obedience  to  an  absolute  moral  law, 
which,  in  Emerson's  words,  "  lies  at  the  centre  of  Nature 
and  radiates  to  the  circumference,"  can  redeem  the  world 
from  the  imperialism,  militarism,  commercialism,  and  gen- 
eral reviving  barbarism  which  are  threatening  to  drown 
civilization  itself  at  the  beginning  of  this  new  century. 
It  was  the  ambition  of  my  youth  to  interpret  in  terms  of 
thought  and  philosophically  to  justify  the  "  blazing  ubiqui- 
ties "  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  to  hold  up  to 
the  world  a  proud  example  of  their  truth,  not  only  in  the 
Constitution  of  my  country,  but  in  my  country's  free  obe- 
dience to  iz  and  to  them.  But  it  is  the  sorrow  and  humilia- 
tion of  my  age  to  see  my  country  herself  trample  both  it 
and  them  under  her  feet,  and  retreat  under  treacherous 
leadership  to  betray  a  trusting  ally,  conquer  a  free  people, 
crush  a  young  republic  founded  on  her  own  principles  in 
the  Philippine  Islands,  and  reintroduce  into  her  own  body 
politic  that  poison  of  human  slavery  which  she  once  hero- 
ically expelled.  All  that  I  can  do  to  lighten  the  sense  of 
my  own  unwilling  complicity  as  a  citizen  in  these  national 
wrongs  is  to  leave  this  work  as  my  solemn  piotest  against 
them,  and  to  hope  that  reviving  wisdom  and  virtue  may  yet 
lead  my  country  to  a  better  mind  and  better  deeds. 

To  Sir  William  Hamilton  I  owe  the  great  service  of 
awakening  my  philosophical  consciousness,  —  not,  it  is  true, 
by  way  of  agreement,  but  by  way  of  polarization  to  opposite 


fl 


PREFACE 


IX 


opinion.  In  a  three-page  pencilled  note,  dated  Sept.  20, 
1859,  at  the  end  of  his  then  just  published  "  Lectures  on 
Metaphysics,"  I  recorded  my  dissent  from  his  famous  Law 
of  the  Conditioned,  holding  that  space  is  knoivn  to  be  in- 
finite because  it  is  infinite,  and  cannot  be  otherwise.  This 
is  the  principle  of  philosophical  objectivism,  namely,  that 
in  knowledge  the  object  determines  the  subject,  as  opposed 
to  the  principle  of  philosophical  subjectivism,  namely,  that 
in  knowledge  the  subject  determines  the  object.  The  three- 
page  note  became  the  germ  of  two  articles  in  the  North 
American  Review  for  July  and  October,  18G4,  in  the  earlier 
of  which  the  two  important  principles  of  the  perceptive 
understanding  and  the  objectivity  of  relations  had  already 
been  deduced  from  the  principle  of  philosophical  objec- 
tivism in  this  more  than  hint :  "  Suffice  it  to  say  that,  if  we 
really  know  the  objective  relations  of  things,  there  must  be 
some  faculty  of  pure  and  immediate  cognition  of  relations." 
But  the  logical  development  of  philosophical  objectivism 
could  not  and  did  not  end  here.  The  simple  objectivity  of 
relations  necessarily  led  to  the  trichotomy  of  existence,  as 
things,  relations,  and  conditions;  and  this  triple  deter- 
mination of  the  object,  as  existence  in  general,  necessarily 
led  to  the  further  development  of  the  doctrine  of  the  per- 
ceptive understanding  into  the  trichotomy  of  perception 
itself,  as  sensuous,  intellectual,  and  rational.  These  two 
trichotomies,  of  which  the  entire  Syllogistic  Philosophy 
is  the  natural  and  necessary  outgrowth,  were  reduced  to 
writing  in  the  last  months  of  1864,  as  the  foundation  of 
two  tables  of  "  Cosmical  Categories "  and  "  Mental  Cate- 
gories." But  the  further  development  of  the  nascent 
philosophy  was  checked  and  retarded  for  many  years  by 
untoward  circumstances,  in  fact  until  1879,  since  when  it 
has  been  the  supreme  aim  of  all  the  energy  and  leisure  I 
could  command.  If  the  desire  of  the  late  Prof.  Francis 
Bowen,  of  Harvard  University,  to  have  me  appointed  as 
his  assistant  professor  of  philosophy  in  1866  (a  desire  of 
which  I  knew  nothing  definitely  at  the  time)  could  have 


/ 


PREFACE 


been  gratified,  this  book  would  beyond  a  doubt  have  been 
ready  for  publication  twenty  or  thirty  years  ago.*  But  it 
was  not  to  be.  Silent  heterodoxy  may  be  no  bar  to  such 
appointments,  but  heterodoxy  that  talks  or  prints  is  fatal, 
or  at  least  was  fatal  in  the  sixties. 

The  first  chapter  of  this  book  was  written  in  1893,  the 
last  in  1903,  and  the  rest  between.  That  explains  many 
defects  and  needless  repetitions.  In  the  Appendix  are 
contained  papers  all  written  in  the  last  three  months  of 
1889  and  scarcely  changed  at  all.  The  Fundamental  Phi- 
losophemes  were  then  in  their  tenth  draft,  and  had  been 
drawn  up  as  the  ground-plan  of  five  volumes,  in  order  to 
unfold  in  accordance  with  the  one  undeviating  method  of 
evolution  through  involution  the  logical  content  of  the 
Axiom  of  Philosophy,  not  as  "I  think,  therefore  I  am," 
but  rather  as  "  Human  knowledge  exists."  But  I  saw  soon 
that  it  would  be  necessary  to  explain  the  absolute  self- 
groundedness  of  this  original  position  in  a  sixth  introductory 
volume,  and  the  explanation  has  grown  into  this  present 
work.  I  must  leave  to  other  hands,  if  the  syllogistic 
method  of  evolution  through  involution  approves  itself  at 
last  in  philosophy  to  the  consensus  of  the  competent,  the 
task  of  converting  this  rude  path  blazed  through  the  wilder- 
ness into  a  beaten  highway.  The  Fundamental  Analyses, 
if  carefully  compared  point  by  point  with  each  other,  ex- 
hibit the  steady  deepening  of  characteristics  in  the  passage 
from  machine  to  organism  and  from  organism  to  person, 
and  the  inclusion  of  each  lower  type  of  reality  in  the  next 
higher  and  of  all  in  the  highest.     The  Schemas  present  a 

*  In  a  letter  dated  11  Quincy  Street,  Cambridge,  Feb.  29,  1892,  the  late 
Prof.  Andrew  P.  Peabody,  D.D.,  wrote  to  me  :  "  Professor  Bowen  was  so  much 
more  of  a  conservative  in  theology  than  myself  that  any  objections  that  I  might 
have  had  would,  I  think,  have  been  more  than  met  in  my  mind  by  his  endorse- 
ment of  you.  I  have,  however,  this  distinct  remembrance.  When  Mr.  Bowen 
and  I  conferred  about  j'our  Ph.D.  degree,  he  said,  *  I  wish  I  could  have  had 
Abbot  as  my  assistant  teacher.'  He  undoubtedly  referred  to  the  transaction  of 
1866-7,  but  I  did  not  know  the  full  meaning  of  it  till  your  statement  in  your 
pamphlet  explained  it."  (In  that  pamphlet  the  date  was  erroneously  given 
from  memory  as  1866-7 ;  as  other  letters  prove,  it  was  early  in  1866.) 


PREFACE 


XI 


similar  progress  of  thought  in  a  wholly  different  aspect, 
as  relation  of  individual  to  universal,  of  knowledge  to  life, 
and  of  human  to  Divine,  in  the  world  as  one.  The  Cate- 
gories of  Being,  Mind,  Evolution,  and  Constitution  require 
to  be  supplemented  and  to  some  extent  corrected  by  the 
tables  at  the  close  of  Chapter  XVIII,  in  which  the  unity  of 
method  and  form  in  Syllogistic  Philosophy  is  very  suc- 
cinctly set  forth  in  systematic  completeness.  The  lack  of 
elegance  and  polish  in  this  system  is  something  of  which  I 
am  only  too  keenly  conscious ;  yet  when  I  stand  back  and 
look  at  the  statue  from  a  distance,  I  cannot  help  recognizing 
in  it  the  majesty  of  truth.  My  earlier  books  on  "Scientific 
Theism ''  (1885)  and  "  The  Way  out  of  Agnosticism"  (1890), 
as  well  as  the  weekly  files  of  The  Index  from  Jan.  1, 1870, 
to  July  1,  1880,  not  one  word  of  which  do  I  retract,  were 
only  attempts  to  save  something  from  the  threatened  ship- 
wreck on  a  stormy  sea;  but  in  this  book  I  bring  my  battered 
barque  to  port,  after  a  fashion,  with  whatever  cargo  of  value 
it  may  prove  to  hold.  If  at  last  it  shall  receive  sober,  just, 
and  intelligent  appreciation,  I  believe  that  it  will  be  found 
to  have  done  for  philosophy  what  was  done  for  botany  in 
transition  from  the  artificial  Linna3an  classification  to  the 
natural  system  of  classification  by  total  organic  and  genetic 
relationship  —  a  revolution  never  to  be  reversed;  and  to 
give  to  ethical  and  free  religion  what  it  has  never  yet  had, 
a  basis  in  scientific  reason.  The  days  of  philosophical  sub- 
jectivism are  numbered;  and  who  can  conceive  a  more  solid 
or  lasting  foundation  for  objectivism  than  the  principle  of 
absolute  logic,  the  identity  in  difference  of  evolution  and 
involution  in  all  Being,  Knowing,  and  Doing,  as  identity  in 
difference  of  Nature  and  Spirit  in  the  Absolute  I?  Not 
until  absolute  logic  is  seen  to  be  the  necessary  and  only 
possible  foundation  of  absolute  religion  and  absolute  moral- 
ity, not  until  the  childish  and  degrading  fear  of  reason  is 
thoroughly  outgrown,  can  the  world  ever  become  civilized, 
—  that  is,  thoroughly  moralized.  There  is  no  civilization 
but  moralization,  and  nothing  can  ever  persuade  the  "  heed- 


Xll 


PREFACE 


less  world "  of  this  supreme  and  saving  truth  except  the 
overmasteringness  of  absolute  logic.  May  this  book  help 
the  world,  taught  at  last  to  be  heedful  and  not  heedless,  to 
tread  the  path  of  the  only  possible  salvation  from  its  own 
follies  and  sins  —  the  path  of  free  self-moralization  in  the 
Absolute  Ethical  I. 


FRANCIS  ELLINGWOOD  ABBOT. 


43  Labch  Koad,  Cambkidox 
October  13,  1903. 


EDITOR'S    PREFACE 


The  manuscript  of  this  book,  finished  in  September,  1903, 
was  revised  by  the  author  before  his  death  on  October  22, 
1903.  In  accordance  with  his  wish  it  is  printed  in  detail 
as  he  left  it,  even  to  the  punctuation,  upon  which  he  be- 
stowed much  care.  The  sections  are  numbered  as  in  the 
manuscript,  and  it  will  be  seen  that  sections  38  and  39  are 
absent ;  they  were  not  written. 

During  the  proof-reading  all  quotations  and  references 
have  been  carefully  compared  with  the  text  of  the  works 
cited,  with  the  exception  of  two  which,  being  comparatively 
unimportant   and   not   easily    accessible,    have    not    been 

verified. 

Many  causes,  some  avoidable,  others  not,  have  contrib- 
uted to  the  three  years'  postponement  of  the  publication 
of  the  book.  In  that  time  De  Vries'  theory  of  the  origin 
of  species  by  mutation  has  come  into  marked  prominence. 
Since  it  is  not  mentioned  in  the  book,  and  since  it  combats 
(how  completely  or  successfully  only  the  future  can  show) 
the  so-called  "  fluctuation  "  theory  of  Darwin,  which  is  re- 
ferred to  in  many  places,  especially  in  Chapter  VII,  I  am 
loth  to  let  the  book  go  forth  without  calling  attention  to 
the  fact  that,  in  the  recognition  of  the  existence  and  know- 
ability  of  the  individual  difEerence  and  the  reality  and 
mutability  of  species,  the  two  theories  are  philosophically 
in  complete  harmony.  It  is  only  in  their  biological  aspects 
that  they  differ.  De  Vries  himself  says  "  My  work  claims 
to  be  in  full  accord  with  the  principles  laid  down  by  Darwin." 

I  take  this  opportunity  to  thank  cordially  all  those 
who  by  advice  and  in  innumerable  other  ways  have  aided 
and  encouraged  me  in  the  publication  of  this,  my  father's 

^^^^"  THE  EDITOR. 

September,  1906. 


THE 


SYLLOGISTIC   PHILOSOPHY 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

§  1.  Philosophy  has  always  been  held  to  be  a  search  for 
Knowledge.  On  this  point  there  has  never  been  any  differ- 
ence of  opinion.  Ancient  philosophy  sought  for  knowledge 
of  Being  (to  oi/to>s  6v).  Modern  philosophy  seeks  for  knowl- 
edge of  Thought  {Beivusstseyn  uberhaupt).  Reformed  mod- 
ern philosophy  seeks  for  knowledge  of  Knowledge,  as  the 
indissoluble  union  of  Being  and  Thought. 

§  2.  Conceived  as  purified  from  all  the  crudities  of 
"common  sense,"  —  that  is,  from  all  the  errors,  prejudices, 
preconceptions,  misjudgraents,  and  false  inferences  which 
are  due  to  an  unreflective  habit  of  mind,  and  from  every 
distortion  of  truth  which  may  be  referred  to  "  merely  indi- 
vidual experience  "  or  to  the  "  personal  equation,''  —  the 
Knowledge  of  Knowledge  becomes  the  Science  of  Science. 
As  yet,  however,  science  is  scarcely  conscious  of  existing 
otherwise  than  as  a  number  of  more  or  less  loosely  allied 
particular  sciences.  If  it  were  to  be  developed  in  its  ideal 
unity  and  universality,  the  Science  of  Science  would  become 
the  Philosophy  of  Philosophy  ;  and  this,  perhaps,  is  the 
highest  expression  for  the  self-consciousness  of  human 
reason.  Certainly,  philosophy  is  very  much  more  than  a 
mere  succession  of  individual  philosophical  systems,  un- 
critically expounded  without  bringing  out  their  internal 
rational  connection.  It  is  very  much  more,  also,  than  even 
a  profoundly  critical  history  of  such  systems ;  for  nothing 
could  be  more  shallow  or  more  untrue  than  the  strangely 
admired  dictum  that  "  the  history  of  philosophy  is  philoso- 

VOL.   I.  — I 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


phy  itself."  Philosophy  itself  can  be  nothing  short  of  a 
unitary  and  universal  system  of  the  Knowledge  of  Knowl- 
edge, containing  within  itself  all  principles  of  discovered 
truth,  animated  by  an  organic  life-principle  of  its  own,  and 
capable  of  perpetual  growth  as  a  living  whole.  Whatever 
is  known  must  be  set  by  it  in  due  relation  and  proportion 
to  whatever  else  is  known ;  whatever  is  learned  must  be 
promptly  incorporated  and  assimilated  by  it  as  so  much 
food  for  the  natural  systemic  development  of  the  whole. 
Mere  criticism  is  not  philosophy ;  nay,  criticism  unregu- 
lated by  a  system  of  philosophy  is  itself  unphilosophical. 
The  "  professional "  critic  who  assumes  his  office  without 
first  qualifying  himself  for  its  duties  by  conscientiously 
mastering  a  necessary  system  of  necessary  truths  as  the 
only  just  standard  of  measurement  for  philosophical  values, 
plays  the  part  of  a  buccaneer  on  the  high  seas,  criticises 
from  mere  caprice,  attacks  better  craft  than  his  own  with 
broadsides  of  blunders,  and  preys  on  the  commerce  of 
human  reason  under  no  other  flag  than  the  pirate's  skull- 
and-cross-boues,  — the  empty  skull  of  ignorance  over  the 
cross-bones  of  detraction  and  personal  conceit.  In  fact,  the 
criticism  which  presumes  to  philosophize  without  a  philoso- 
phy is  the  most  offensive  form  of  "  naivete '^  and  "com- 
mon sense."  The  only  criticism  which  deserves  to  be 
considered  as  in  the  least  degree  philosophical  is  such  as  is 
prompted  and  guided  at  every  step  by  a  philosophy  already 
demonstrated  to  be  true.  Hence  the  mere  history  of  phi- 
losophy, however  critical,  is  never  philosophy  itself ;  this 
can  never  be  other  than  the  Philosophy  of  Philosophy, — 
an  all-inclusive  and  perfectly  rational  system,  absorbing 
whatever  is  true  in  all  prior  and  partial  systems,  yet,  so 
far  from  being  arbitrarily  eclectic,  substantiating  what- 
ever truths  it  thus  absorbs  by  a  rigorous  deduction  of  them 
from  its  own  all-permeating  principle,  —  in  short,  a  phi- 
losophy which  shall  philosophize  all  philosophies. 

§  3.    This  conception  of  philosophy  is  the  ideal  aim  of 
human  reason  itself.     It  is  more  or  less  clearly  hinted  at, 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


3 


perhaps  even  partially  expressed,  in  Aristotle's  vorjai^ 
voT/crccos,  Fichte's  Wissenschaft  von  einer  Wissenschaft  iiher- 
haupt  or  Wissen  vom  Wlssen,  Hegel's  Begriff  des  Begriffes, 
and  so  forth.  But  it  means  something  very  different  here. 
From  the  simple  fact  that  every  philosophy  which  can  re- 
ceive critical  consideration  must  appear  (1)  in  the  history  of 
human  thought^  and,  in  order  to  appear  in  the  history  of 
human  thought,  must  appear,  also,  (2)  in  the  form  of  lit- 
erature, it  follows  that  every  such  philosophy  must  possess 
a  literary  or  serial  form ;  that  is,  it  must  begin  with  an 
initial  affirmation,  proceed  by  intermediate  affirmations, 
and  end  with  a  final  affirmation.  This,  from  the  nature  of 
the  case,  must  be  just  as  true  of  the  ideal  Philosophy  of 
Philosophy  as  it  is  true  of  all  the  philosophies  it  must 
philosophize.  Hence,  as  a  reasoned  literary  exposition  of 
the  Knowledge  of  Knowledge,  the  series  of  affirmations  or 
philosophemes  constituting  the  Pliilosophy  of  Philosophy 
must  begin  with  a  known  or  absolutely  necessary  and 
certain  starting-point,  proceed  by  a  known  or  absolutely 
rational  method,  and  end  with  a  known  or  absolutely 
demonstrated  result. 

§  4.  But  how  is  it  possible  for  any  philosophy  to  start 
with  an  affirmation,  proposition,  or  judgment  which  shall 
reconcile  and  realize  in  itself  the  necessary  requirements  of 
being,  at  the  same  time,  (1)  absolutely  necessary  and  cer- 
tain, and  yet  (2)  rationally  first?  In  the  combination  of 
these  conditions  there  lies  an  apparent  contradiction. 

Philosophy,  as  such,  neglects  all  affirmations  of  pure 
feeling,  imagination,  memory,  will,  and  so  forth,  and  limits 
itself  to  rational  affirmations  alone.  The  former  are  all 
subjective,  contingent,  and  individual,  while  the  latter  are 
all  objective,  necessary,  and  universal.  Now  every  rational 
affirmation  is  a  known  or  absolutely  certain  one;  it  must 
affirm  knowledge,  that  is,  either  of  an  actual  experience  or 
of  a  valid  reason ;  and  the  actual  experience  or  the  valid 
reason  is  the  ultimate  ground  on  which  it  unconditionally 
depends,  as  the  necessary  condition  of  its  own  rationality. 


4  THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 

To  affirm  what  is  known  is  rational,  but  to  affirm  what 
is  not  known  is  irrational  or  at  least  non-rational;   for 
the  existence  of  this  ultimate    ground  of  knowledge  is 
what  makes  an  affirmation  rational.     This  principle  is  well 
expressed  by  Descartes,  when  he  says  that  "  the  light  of 
nature  dictates  to  us,  never  to  make   a  judgment  except 
about  something  which  is  known."  ^   This  ultimate  ground, 
however,  being  necessarily  implied  and  presupposed  by 
every  rational  affirmation  as  the  condition  of    its   own 
rationality,   may  always  be  affirmed,  and,  being  affirmed, 
rationally  precedes  the  affirmation  which  it  conditions. 
It  would  appear,  therefore,  that  every  known  or  uncon- 
ditionally certain  affirmation  depends  of  necessity  upon  a 
prior  ground  of   knowledge,  either  in  experience  or  in 
reason;   and   this  prior  ground  of  knowledge,  when  af- 
firmed, constitutes  a  rationally  prior  and  really  first  affirma- 
tion.    Hence  it  is  an  apparent  contradiction  to  require  that 
the  starting-point  of  the  Philosophy  of  Philosophy  shall  be 
at  once  absolutely  certain,  yet  really  and  rationally  first. 
The  starting-point  must  be  a  truth,  or  else  what  follows 
from  it  cannot  be  true.     Yet,  says  Schopenhauer,  *<  every 
truth  is  the  reference  of  a  judgment  to  something  outside  of 
itself,  and  intrinsic  truth  is  a  contradiction  in  terms.  .  .  . 
Truth  is  the  reference  of  a  judgment  to  something  outside 
of  itself,  as  its  sufficient  ground."  ^    How,  then,  can  the 
first  judgment  or  starting-point  of  philosophy  be  a  truth 
not  dependent  on  some  rationally  prior  truth  ?    How  can 
this  seemingly  insuperable  difficulty  be  overcome,  not  by  a 

1  Principia  Philosophiae,  I.  44:  "Lumen  naturae  nobis  dictat,  nun- 
quam  nisi  de  re  eognita  esse  judicandum." 

2  A.  Schopenhauer,  Ueber  die  vierfache  Wurzel  des  Satzes  vom  zureich- 
enden  Grunde,  §§  30,  33.  So,  also,  J.  G.  Fichte,  Erste  Einleitung  in 
die  Wissenschaftslehre,  Werke,  I.  424:  "  Der  Grund  fallt,  zufolge  des 
blossen  Denkens  eines  Grundes,  ausserhalb  des  begrundeten  ;  beides,  das 
begriindete  und  der  Grand,  werden,  inwiefern  sie  dies  sind,  einander  ent- 
gegengesetzt,  an  einander  gehalten,  und  so  das  erstere  aus  dem  letzteron 
erkliirt."  Again,  Zweite  Einleitung,  Werke,  I.  456 :  *'  Der  Grund  liegt  alle- 
mal  ausserhalb  des  begrundeten,  d.  i.  er  ist  demselben  entgegengesetzt." 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY  5 

trick,  but  by  a  rational  solution  ?  How  can  the  Philosophy 
of  Philosophy  find  a  known  or  absolutely  certain  starting- 
point,  that  is,  an  affirmation  which  shall  be  grounded  on 
knowledge,  yet  to  which  the  affirmation  of  its  ground  shall 
not  be  rationally  prior  ? 

§  5.  Whatever  else,  indeed,  may  be  true  of  the  starting- 
point  or  required  initial  affirmation  of  the  Philosophy  of 
Philosophy,  these  two  conditions,  it  seems  clear,  must  be 
fulfilled  in  it :  — 

I.  The  rationally  first  affirmation  of  philosophy,  in  order 
to  be  necessarily  affirmed  or  absolutely  certain,  must  be 
grounded  on  knowledge.     But  — 

II.  The  affirmation  of  its  ground  must  not  be  rationally 
prior  to  it. 

These  two  conditions  of  the  actuality  of  an  affirmation 
which  can  serve  as  a  rationally  first  or  fundamental  propo- 
sition in  philosophy,  however  contradictory  they  may  seem, 
must  be  found  capable  of  a  strictly  rational  reconciliation, 
and  must  be  actually  reconciled,  if  philosophy,  as  the  sys- 
tem of  universal  reason,  can  actually  begin.  For,  unless 
the  first  affirmation  of  philosophy  is  strong  enough  to  bear 
the  combined  weight  of  all  the  affirmations  that  rest  upon 
it,  it  needs  no  argument  to  show  that  they  must  all  crumble 
together  in  one  common  ruin.  How,  then,  shall  the  two 
conditions  above  mentioned  be  actually  and  rationally 
reconciled  ? 

§  6.  The  solution  of  this  problem  lies  almost  in  the 
statement  of  it.  It  needs  but  to  draw  the  necessary 
inference  from  the  two  conditions  themselves,  as  fol- 
lows :  — 

I.  The  rationally  first  affirmation  of  philosophy,  in  order 
to  be  absolutely  certain,  must  be  grounded  on  knowledge. 
But  — 

II.  The  affirmation  of  its  ground  must  not  be  rationally 

prior  to  it.     Therefore  — 

III.  The  affirmation  of  its  ground  must  be  rationally 
simultaneous  with  it,  that  is,  must  be  contained  in  it.    In 


6 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOrHY 


other  words,  the  content  and  the  ground  must  be  identical, 
and  the  afhrniation  itself  must  be  thus  self-grounded. 

If  a  rational  affirmation  can  be  found  which  shall  affirm 
its  own  universal  ground  as  its  own  particular  content,  and 
if  both  content  and  ground  can  be  thus  expressed  in  one 
and  the  same  form  of  words  as  one  indivisible  judgment, 
then  it  is  clear  that  a  separate  affirmation  of  the  universal 
ground  will  be  in  no  degree  different  from  the  original  affir- 
mation itself,  —  will  be,  not  prior  to  it,  but  simultaneous 
and  identical  with  it.     The  two  separate  affirmations  of  the 
universal  ground  will  be  really  one  and  the  same  affirma- 
tion repeated;   the  two  together  will   say  no  more  than 
either  will  say  alone;    the  original  affirmation  will  be  in 
itself  the  identity  of  content  and  ground,   and   thus  con- 
stitute an  absolute  starting-point  for  philosophy.     The  con- 
tent will  be  affirmation  of  the  ground,  and  the  ground  will 
be  affirmation  of  the  content  ;    neither  will  be  rationally 
prior  to  the  other,  but  both  will    be    equally,  simultane- 
ously, and  absolutely  necessary  or  certain.     Thus  one  and 
the  same  affirmation  will  be  both  absolutely  necessary  and 
certain  and  rationally  first,  because  it  is  exclusively  seJf- 
grounded,  —  grounded  in  itself  on    the    affirmation   of  its 
ground,  and  rationally  independent,  therefore,  of  any  prior 
or  separate  affirmation  of  that  ground.     What    Schopen- 
hauer denied  to  be  possible  will  have  been  actually  found, 
—  an  "intrinsic  truth." 

Sucli  a  self-grounded  affirmation,  therefore,  provided  it 
can  be  found,  will  reconcile  and  realize  in  itself  the  two 
apparently  contradictory  conditions  of  a  real  starting-point 
for  the  Philosophy  of  Philosophy.  Moreover,  it  will  stand 
as  the  rational  norm,  type,  or  criterion  of  all  philosophical 
beginnings ;  its  identity  of  content  and  ground  will  become 
a  universal  principle  of  philosophical  criticism  by  which  to 
test  and  determine  the  validity  or  invalidity  of  these  begin- 
nings. Not  the  subjective  principle  of  "self-evidence," 
measuring  the  legitimacy  of  a  starting-point  in  philosophy 
by  the  degree  of  clearness  with  which  it  appears  to  some 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


individual  philosopher,  but  the  objective  principle  of  irfen- 
tity  of  content  and  ground  in  the  starting-point  itself,  meas- 
uring the  legitimacy  of  it  by  its  internal  rational  necessity, 
will  become  the  criterion  of  philosophical  beginnings  for 
all  philosophers.  Nothing,  therefore,  could  be  more  im- 
portant than  the  discovery  of  such  a  self-grounded  affirma- 
tion, for  philosophy  can  find  nowhere  else  a  beginning 
which  will  really  begin.  Philosophy  cannot  begin  nowhere, 
nor  everywhere,  nor  yet  anywhere  at  random ;  it  must  be- 
gin somewhere  in  particular,  and  must  abide  rigorously  by 
its  own  beginning.  Hence  the  incalculable  importance  of 
beginning  aright,  since  to  begin  amiss  is  to  foreordain  fail- 
ure in  the  end. 

§  7.  Now,  every  philosophy  being  necessarily  constituted 
(so  far,  at  least,  as  criticism  can  take  cognizance  of  it)  as  a 
series  of  rational  affirmations  appearing  under  the  form  of 
literature  in  the  history  of  human  thought,  the  question  as 
to  a  self-grounded  affirmation  is  a  question  as  to  the  uni- 
versal ultimate  ground  of  all  rational  affirmation  itself.  If 
this  ground  can  be  determined,  and  then  made  the  content 
of  a  first  affirmation,  such  an  affirmation  will  exhibit  that 
absolute  identity  of  content  and  ground,  that  absolute  indif- 
ference between  separate  affirmations  of  the  two,  which  is 
necessary  to  make  it  a  self-grounded  affirmation,  and  there- 
fore an  absolute  starting-point  or  real  beginning  for  philos- 
ophy itself.  From  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  there  can 
be  but  one  such  beginning.  If  all  rational  affirmations 
have  but  one  ultimate  and  universal  ground,  it  follows  that 
the  taking  of  this  one  ground  for  the  one  content  of  one 
affirmation  will  render  this  one  affirmation  the  only  possible 
self-grounded  affirmation.  It  must  be  an  absolutely  unique 
judgment,  in  the  sense  that  no  other  judgment  could  possi- 
bly fulfil  the  unique  function  of  furnishing  to  philosophy  a 
starting-point  absolutely  certain,  yet  rationally  first.  Every 
other  judgment,  from  the  very  fact  that  it  is  another  judg- 
ment, must  have  another  content,  —  not  the  universal 
ground  of  all  rational  affirmation,  but  some  other  content ; 


8 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


9 


yet  that  universal  ground  is  rationally  prior  to  all  its  con- 
sequents,  and  the  affirmation  of  that  ground  is  rationally 
prior  to  all  its  consequent  affirmations.  If,  then,  the  uni- 
versal ground  is  made  the  content  of  a  particular  afflrma- 
tion,  the  affirmation  thus  self-grounded  will  constitute  the 
only  philosophical  beginning  which  really  begins. 

§  8.  Since,  then,  what  makes  an  affirmation  rational  is 
as  we  have  seen  (§  4),  nothing  but  the  existence  of  human 
knowledge  as  its  ground  or  reason,  -  since,  in  other  words 
we  cannot  rationally  affirm  anything  to  be  so  or  so,  unless 
we  actually  know  it  to  be  as  we  affirm  it,  and  since,  as  phi- 
losophers we  affirm  it  simply  because  we  know  it,  -  the 
form  of  the  only  possible  self-grounded  affirmation  is  deter, 
mined  by  its  nature  to  be  the  affirmation  of  human  knowl- 
edge itself.    Its  form,  then,  will  be  essentially  this  :  _ 

Human  Knowledge  Exists. 
Superficially  considered,  no  proposition  could  be  more 
flat  or  more  uninteresting  than  this  formless  and  colorless 
statement.     Objection  will  at  once   be  made:    "Human 
knowledge  exists,  of  course  ;  but  what  of  it  ?    Surely,  noth- 
ing follows  philosophically  from  that !  -    On  the  contrary 
everything  philosophical  follows  from  that.     If  nothing  but 
actual  human  knowledge  can  be  the  ground  of  any  ratt,„al 
affirmation,  nothing  but  the  affirmation  of  actual  human 
knowledge  can  be  self-grounded,  that  is,  can  afflrmTts 
ground  in  and  with  its  content ;  and  nothing  but  a  self! 
grounded  affirmation  can  be  the  ground  of  a  raLnal  ph  los- 
ophy  or  constitute  its  first  and  all-su.staining  judgment 
If  this  IS  true,- and  how  can  it  be  disputed  ?  -then  the 
existence  of  human  knowledge  is  the  very  first  principled 
phiosophy  Itself.    It  covers  all  that  is  known  by  man 
philosophy  itself  is  simply  its  methodical  development     li 
will  reward  us  to  study  patiently  the  extraordinary  charac- 
teristics of  this  altogether  unique  judgment. 

§  9.    "Human  knowledge  exists."    This  judgment  pre 
sents  Itself  under  a  variety  of  aspects.  ^ 


I.  Looked  at  as  content  alone,  it  is  an  empirical  or 
experiential  judgment,  because  the  content  is  a  pure 
matter  of  fact.  Human  knowledge  exists  now,  but  it  did 
not  always  exist ;  it  certainly  did  not  exist  before  man 
himself  existed,  and  man  himself  did  not  exist  from  all 
eternity.  Hence  the  existence  of  human  knowledge  can  be 
asserted,  not  at  all  as  a  necessary  deduction  from  some 
principle  which  is  rationally  prior  to  it,  but  solely  as  a 
given  fact,  a  pure  datum  of  experience.  Consequently, 
when  philosophy  begins  with  affirming  the  existence  of 
human  knowledge,  it  begins  with  an  affirmation  of  pure 
experience,  so  far  as  its  content  alone  is  concerned. 

II.  Looked  at  as  ground    alone,   the   affirmation   that 
"human  knowledge  exists"  is  a  rational   judgment;  for 
the  content  (t.  e.  "the  actual  existence  of  human  knowledge 
is  a  pure  datum  of  experience  ")  is  affirmed  because  of  the 
ground  {L  e.  "  the  actual  existence  of  human  knowledge  is 
the  condition,  ground,  or  reason  for  affirming  that  human 
knowledge  exists  ").     If  the  content  and  the  ground  were 
to  be  separately  asserted,  the  original  affirmation  would  be 
resolved  into  two  identical  assertions,  the  second  depending 
upon   the   first:    "Human   knowledge   exists   that   human 
knowledge  exists  "  —  that  is,  human  knowledge  is  affirmed 
to  exist  because  it  is  hnoimi  to  exist.     Here  the  first  asser- 
tion, though  its  content,  as  before,  is  purely  empirical  or 
experiential,  is  pure  ground  in  relation  to  the  second,  while 
the  second,  though  potentially  pure  ground  to  a  possible 
identical  third,  is  pure  content  in  relation  to  the  first.    But 
the  absolute  identity  of  the  two  assertions  is  their  rational 
simultaneity;    it  reveals   and  demonstrates   the    absolute 
identity  of  content  and  ground  in  the  original  affirmation ; 
and  the  resolution  of  the  latter  into  the  two  assertions  is 
useful  merely  as  showing  the  two  fundamentally  different 
aspects  under  which  the  original  affirmation  may  be  viewed. 
The  two  identical  and  rationally  simultaneous  assertions, 
in  fact,  say  absolutely  no  more  than  the  original  affirmation 
says;   for  the  latter  contains  the  former  as  simply  two 


10 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


aspects  of  itself.  Consequently,  when  philosophy  begins 
with  affirming  the  existence  of  human  knowledge,  it  begins 
with  an  affirmation  of  inire  reason,  so  far  as  the  dependence 
of  its  content  on  its  ground  is  alone  concerned. 

III.  Looked  at  as  both  content  a?id  yround  in  one,  the 
affirmation  that  *•  human  knowledge  exists"  is  both  em- 
pirical and  rational :  empirical  as  this  particular  judgment, 
rational  as  the  universal  ground  of  all  particular  judgments. 
Such  a  self-grounded  affirmation  furnishes  to  the  philoso- 
pher an  unconditionally  necessary  and  universal  beginning, 
a  "  presuppositionless  starting-point." 

For  the  fact  of  human  knowledge  is  not  itself  a  necessary 
fact,  but,  to  tlie  philosopher,  the  affirmation  of  that  fact  is 
a  necessary  affirmation.     As  the  necessary  system  of  uni- 
versal  human   reason,   philosophy  cannot   possibly  begin 
except  with  a  rationally  self-grounded  affirmation.      The 
only  alternatives  would  be  to  begin  (1)  with  an  absolutely 
ungrounded  affirmation,  or  (2)  with  an  affirmation  grounded 
in  another  affirmation,  expressed  or  implied,  which  is  prior 
to  itself.     On  the  one  hand,  to  begin  with  an  absolutely 
ungrounded   affirmation  would   be   to  begin  with   a  pure 
dogma,  that  is,  an  assertion  without  a  reason ;  and  dogma- 
tism is  not  philosophy,  which  requires  a  valid  reason  for 
every  assertion  without  exception.     On  the  other  hand,  to 
begin  professedly  with  an  affirmation  grounded  in  another 
affirmation,  expressed  or  implied,  Avhicdi  is  prior  to  itself, 
would  be  to  begin  really  with  that  prior  affirmation ;  the 
prior  affirmation  would  be  the  real  beginning,  and  the  pro- 
fessed beginning  would  be  no  beginning  at  all.    If,  whatever 
it  may  be,  the  first  affirmation  of  philosophy  has  a  philo- 
sophical ground   in   some  prior  affirmation,  it  is  a  false 
beginning,  and  philosophy  must  affirm  that  ground  as  its 
true  beginning.     But  here  again  that  ground  must  be  a 
self-grounded  affirmation;  otherwise,  the  ground  of  that 
ground  must  be  affirmed,  and  endless  regress  ensues,  and 
philosophy  becomes    powerless   to  begin    anywhere.      In 
order  to  begin  at  all,  therefore,  philosophy  must  begin 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


11 


with  a  self-grounded  affirmation,  —  that  is,  with  the  only 
possible  "presuppositionless  starting-point."  But,  as  has 
been  shown  in  §§  7  and  8,  no  affirmation  except  ^Miuman 
knowledge  exists"  can  be  self-grounded.  Therefore,  in 
order  to  begin  at  all,  —that  is,  in  order  to  be,  —  philosophy 
must  begin  with  the  necessanj  affirmation  of  the  empirically 
known  existence  of  human  knowledge. 

Similarly,  while  the  fact  of  human  knowledge  is  not  a 
strictly  universal  fact,  since  man  himself  is  not  a  universal 
being,  the  affirmation  of  that  fact,  to  the  philosopher,  is  a 
universal  affirmation;   for  it  covers   and  includes  (1)  all 
human  beings,  and  (2)  all  cognitions  of  each  human  being. 
As  the  necessary  system  of  universal  human  reason,  phi- 
losophy cannot   possibly  begin   with  a  merely  individual 
affirmation,  such  as,  coglto,  ertjo  sum.     An  individual  affir- 
mation is  here  to  be  understood  as  one  which  expresses  a 
merely  individual  experience,  —  that  is,  has  a  merely  indi- 
vidual content;  unless  its  ground,  then,  is  a  merely  indi- 
vidual ground,  the  identity  of  content  and  ground,  which 
is  the  necessary  condition  of  a  real  philosophical  beginning, 
cannot  obtain.     But  an  affirmation  which  has  only  an  indi- 
vidual content  and  an  individual  ground  can  possess  no 
significance  for   philosophy,  as   the   necessary  system   of 
universal   human  reason.     For   instance,  "my  knowledge 
exists,"  or  "I  know,"  is  an  individual  affirmation,  with  an 
individual  content  and  an  individual  ground;  if  both  are 
separately  expressed,  it  becomes,  "my  knowledge  exists 
that  my  knowledge  exists,"  or,  shortly,  "I  know  that  I 
know,"  —  but    not   ^^ human    knowledge   exists    that    mij 
knowledge  exists,"  except  so  far  as  "human"  can  be  con- 
tracted and  narrowed  down  to  merely  "my."     Here,  in 
the  "I  know  that  I  know,"  we  have,  indeed,  the  required 
identity  of  content  and  ground,  but  no  universality;  and 
the  lack  of  universality  deprives  the  affirmation  of  all  sig- 
nificance and  value  for  philosophy,  as  the  necessary  system 
of  universal  human  reason.     A  mere  affirmation  of  indi- 
vidual knowledge  without  an  absolutely  universal  ground 


»« 


12 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


possesses  not  the  flimsiest  title  to  a  philosophical  position 
or  rank,  as  part  of  such  a  system;  in  scope  and  signifi- 
cance, it  has  no  more  to  do  with  philosophy  than  have  such 
affirmations  as  "I  feel  hot,"  *'I  thrill  with  pleasure,"  "I 
conceive  a  mermaid,"  "I  remember  the  battle,"  "I  refuse 
to  stir,"  or  any  other  affirmation  of  purely  subjective  sen- 
sation, emotion,  imagination,  memory,  will,  and  so  forth. 
In  all  such  cases,  the  original  and  common  ground  of  affir- 
mation is  an  implied  prior  affirmation  that  "I  know  : "  "I 
know  that  I  feel  hot,"  ^'I  know  that  I  thrill  with  pleas- 
ure," "I  know  that  I  conceive  a  mermaid,"  "I  know  that 
I  remember  the  battle,"  "I  know  that  I  refuse  to  stir." 
Here,  it  is  true,  universality  obtains  within  the  limited 
range  of  subjective  thought  or  personal  experience.     But 
this  inferior  degree  of  universality  is  altogether  insufficient 
to  give  to  exclusively  personal  affirmation  an  entrance  into 
the  circle  of  philosophical  propositions  or  ideas.     No  affir- 
mation  is  philosophical  unless  it  expands  and  elevates  the 
relative  and  narrow  universality  which  obtains   in   indi- 
vidual reason  into  the  absolute  universality  which  obtains 
in  universal  reason.     Rational  necessity  is  not  for  you  or 
for  me,  but  for  all  rational  beings;  philosophy  is  nothing 
if  not  absolutely  universal.     Suffice  it  now  to  point  out 
that,  in  order  to  begin  at  all,  —that  is,  in  order  to  be,  — 
philosophy  must  begin  with  the  universal  affirmation  of  the 
individually  known  existence  of  human  knowledge. 

§  10.  In  the  foregoing  section  it  has  been  thus  far 
shown :  (1)  that  the  primordial  affirmation  of  philosophy, 
"human  knowledge  exists,"  looked  at  as  content  alone,  is 
a  purely  empirical  judgment;  (2)  that,  looked  at  as  ground 
alone,  it  is  a  purely  rational  judgment;  and  (3)  that,  looked 
at  as  both  content  and  ground  in  one,  it  is  both  empirical 
and  rational  at  once,  as  a  self -grounded  judgment.  Further, 
it  has  been  shown  that  this  self -grounded  judgment,  being 
rooted  equally  in  experience  and  in  reason,  is  (1)  empiri- 
cally known,  yet  rationally  or  necessarily  affirmed,  and 
(2)    individually    known,   yet    rationally  or    universally 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


13 


affirmed.  It  now  remains  to  show  that  this  unique  and 
extraordinary  judgment,  with  respect  to  its  origin  and  its 
validity,  is  (1)  subjective  as  to  content,  (2)  objective  as 
to  ground,  and  (3)  both  subjective  and  objective  per  se. 

I.  Experience  as  such  affirms  what  is  actually  so  or  so 
to  the  individual  subject  of  knowledge  here  and  now,  while 
reason  as  such  affirms  what  must  be  so  or  so  to  all  individual 
subjects  everywhere  and  always  {oIk  ivSexerat  oAAws  €X€lv). 
Hence  a  purely  empirical  judgment  (e.  r/.  "  I  hear  music  ") 
is  valid  for  the  individual  subject  alone  because  it  declares 
an  incommunicable  experience  of  that  subject,  and  is  itself, 
therefore,  exclusively  subjective;  while  a  purely  rational 
judgment  (e.  g.  "all  equal  ratios  are  one  and  the  same  ratio, 
as  2  :  4  =  3  :  6  =  J  ")  is  valid  for  all  individual  subjects 
because  it  declares  a  necessary  and  universal  relation  inher- 
ent in  the  object  affirmed,  and  is  itself,  therefore,  exclu- 
sively objective.  So  far,  consequently,  as  the  affirmation 
that  "  human  knowledge  exists  "  is  a  purely  experiential 
content  alone,  it  is  exclusively  subjective,  because  it  simply 
declares  the  incommunicable  experience  or  actual  present 
thinking  of  the  particular  human  subject  that  affirms  it, 
and  does  not  at  all  transcend  that  experience. 

II.    So  far,  however,  as   the   affirmation   that  "human 
knowledge  exists  "  is  a  purely  rational  ground  alone,  it  is 
exclusively  objective,  because  it  simply  declares  the  uncon- 
ditional dependence  of  human  knowledge  as  content  upon 
human  knowledge  as  ground,  and  does  not  transcend  that 
inherent,  necessary,  and  universal  relation  of  the  two  in  the 
affirmation  itself.     That  human  knowledge   is   known   to 
exist,  as  a  fact,  is  a  pure  datum  of  experience  ;  but  that  the 
affirmation  of  its  existence,  if  it  is  to  be  affirmed  at  all, 
must  be  unconditionally  grounded  upon  actual  knowledge  of 
that  existence  (the  very  affirmation  itself  being  an  actual 
case  of  human  knowledge),  —  this  is  a  pure  necessity  of 
universal  reason.     Hence  the  affirmation,  as  pure  ground, 
does  not  depend  in  the  least  on  the  particular  subject  that 
happens  to  affirm  it  as  pure  content ;  on  the  contrary,  it 


14 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


15 


simply  constitutes  the  absolute  rational  or  logical  condition 
under  which  alone  that  affirmation  can  be  made.  In  other 
words,  if  the  existence  of  human  knowledge  can  be  affirmed 
at  all,  it  can  be  affirmed  solely  on  the  ground  or  warrant  of 
human  knowledge  itself.  This  necessary  connection  of  con- 
tent  and  ground,  or  of  consequence  and  condition,  so  far 
from  being  dependent  in  any  degree  upon  any  particular 
affirming  subject,  though  it  is  of  course  dependent  on  some 
affirming  subject,  is  lodged  immanently  in  the  essential 
nature  of  the  affirmation  as  a  self-grounded  affirmation ;  it 
is  the  absolute  condition  of  the  possibility  of  any  self- 
grounded  affirmation,  originates  in  universal  reason,  and 
transcends  all  limitations  of  any  particular  subject.  The 
affirmation  as  ground  alone,  therefore,  is  necessary,  univer- 
sal, and  objectively  valid  for  all  possible  human  subjects. 

III.    The  affirmation  that  "human  knowledge  exists," 
therefore,  being  subjective  in  its  content  and  objective  in 
its  ground,  is  equally  rooted  in  subjectivity  and  objectivity, 
is  both  subjective  and  objective  per  se  ;  for  it  is  itself  the 
identity  of  content  and  ground  in  a  self-grounded  affirma- 
tion which  originates  both  in  the  subjectivity  of  the  subject 
and   in  the  objectivity  of  the  object,  yet  constitutes,  as 
uttered  affirmation,  an  object  which  transcends  tlie  individ- 
ual subject  altogether,  and  is  objective  to  all  possible  human 
subjects.     Utterance  in  some  one  of  its  myriad  forms,  — 
literature,  speech,  gesture,  expression,  symbolism  in  gene- 
ral, —  is  the  only  known  medium  of  communication  between 
different  human  subjects,  and   must  be  recognized  in  all 
philosophies ;  yet  every  form  of  it  constitutes  a  veritable 
object  of  knowledge,  distinct  from  and  external  to  the  sphere 
of  pure  subjectivity  in  any  particular  human  consciousness. 
Hence  the  affirmation  that  "  human  knowledge  exists,"  like 
every  other  utterance  of  human  thought,  must  have  its  own 
essential  and  distinctive  nature  per  se ;  it  must  be  subjec- 
tive ^er  se,  in  that  it  originates  in  and  outwardly  expresses 
the  particular  experience  of  one  human  subject,  but  it  must 
also  be  objective  per  se,  in  that  it  originates  in,  and  is  itself 


an  object  to,  the  universal  reason  of  all  human  subjects. 
This  is  a  necessary  consequence  of  what  has  preceded,  and 
it  leads  necessarily  to  further  consequences. 

The  subjective  particularity  of  personal  experience,  and 
the  objective  universality  of  human  reason  interpenetrate 
inextricably,  though  distinguishably,  in  this  first  and  fund- 
amental principle  of  the  Philosophy  of  Philosophy.  Con- 
tent and  ground,  experience  and  reason,  actuality  and 
necessity,  individuality  and  universality,  subjectivity  and 
objectivity,  are  indissolubly  united,  yet  absolutely  without 
contradiction,  in  the  momentous  affirmation  that  "  human 
knowledge  exists."  In  this  one,  and  only  possible  self- 
grounded  affirmation,  therefore,  the  Philosophy  of  Philoso- 
phy consciously  effects  what  the  History  of  Philosophy 
and  the  Criticism  of  Philosophy  have  thus  far  failed  to  ex- 
hibit: namely,  an  absolutely  self-grounded  beginning  or 
starting-point,  necessary,  universal,  and  objectively  valid 
for  all  philosophers. 

Furthermore,  the  affirmation  that  "human  knowledge 
exists,"  involves  two,  and  only  two  possible  interpreta- 
tions :  (1)  "  My  knowledge  exists,"  and  (2)  "  Our  knowl- 
edge exists." 

In  the  first  place,  the  word  "human,"  necessarily  in- 
volves both  the  one  and  the  mantj,  both  the  /and  the  We. 
"My  knowledge  exists,"  is  precisely  equivalent  to  the 
shorter  and  more  idiomatic,  "  I  know,"  while  "  Our  knowl- 
edge exists,"  is  precisely  equivalent  to  "  We  know."  Thus, 
out  of  the  seemingly  barren  generality  of  the  affirmation 
that  '* human  knowledge  exists,"  there  immediately  starts 
forth  the  sharp  and  all-important  issue  between  philosophi- 
cal Individualism  and  philosophical  Universalism,  of  which 
the  "I  know  "  and  the  "We  know"  may  be  taken  as  con- 
venient typical  formulas.  In  the  necessary  emergence  of 
this  issue  lies  the  first  rational  development  of  the  original 
principle  or  starting-point  of  philosophy.  Its  mere  phrase- 
ology irresistibly  suggests  the  necessary  evolution  of  it  as  a 
living  first  principle. 


16 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  rniLOSOPHY 


But,  in  the  second  place,  there  exists  a  deeper  reason  for 
the  same  evolution.    The  content  of  the  affirmation  that 
"human    knowledge    exists,"    originates,    as    has    been 
shown,  in  the  particular  experience  of  the  individual  sub- 
ject,  while  the  ground  of  it  originates  in  the  universal 
reason  of  the  race.    But  the  race  itself,  with  whatever 
belongs  to  the  race,  is  necessarily  objective  to  the  individ- 
ual subject.     Hence  the  issue  between  Individualism  and 
Universalism  not  only  itself  emerges,  but  inevitably  and 
immediately  generates  the  still    further  issues    between 
Subjectivism  and  Objectivism,  Idealism  and  Realism.     It 
is  sufficient  for  the  present  merely  to  indicate  the  course  of 
development  which  is  necessitated  by  the  essential  nature 
of  the  principle  with  which  we  start,  and  to  relegate  these 
issues  to  subsequent  chapters.     It  still  remains  to  show 
here  that  the  principle   itself  is  (1)  indubitable,  (2)  un- 
deniable, and  (3)  undemonstrablc  from  other  grounds  than 
itself. 

§  11.   Doubt  is  only  a  sort  of  knowledge.     It  is  nothing 
but  the  self-consciousness   of  ignorance,  while  yet  self- 
consciousness  itself  is  nothing  but  self-knowledge.    Abso- 
lute or  universal  ignorance  is  simple  unconsciousness;  a 
stone,  as  such,  is  absolutely  ignorant  because  it  is  abso- 
lutely unconscious.     But  relative  ignorance,  or  doubt,  is 
consciousness  of  the  absence  of  some  particular  knowl- 
edge —  want  of  that  particular  knowledge;   a  man  may 
be  absolutely  ignorant  of  many  things  of  which  he  is  un- 
conscious,  but  he  can  be  relatively  ignorant,  or  doubtful, 
only  of  what  he  wants  to  know.    Doubt  cannot  exist  where 
nothing  has  been  affirmed;    it  is   necessarily   related  to 
affirmation  as   a  conscious   reaction  against   it,   or,  more 
accurately,  a  conscious  deadlock  between  affirmation  and 
negation  of  the  same  thing.     Hence,  only  a  self-conscious 
or  self-knowing  being  can  possibly  be  in  a  state  of  doubt. 
But  negation  itself  is  only  one  form  of  affirmation.     Eela^ 
tive  ignorance,  therefore,  or  doubt,  as  a  conscious  deadlock 
between  two  opposing  affirmations  or  pair  of  contradict- 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


17 


ories,  is  just  as  definite  and  positive  a  mental  state  as 
knowledge  itself ;  and,  being  conscious  of  itself,  it  there- 
by knows  itself.  In  other  words,  doubt  is  only  a  form 
of  knowledge  —  knowledge  of  knowledge  accompanied  with 
knowledge  of  ignorance  —  knowledge  of  itself  as  ignorant 
which  of  two  known  contradictory  affirmations  it  ought  to 
accept ;  it  is  only  a  bewildered  question,  "  Which  of  these 
two  is  true?"  But  nothing  save  knowledge  of  the  two 
could  possibly  put  that  question.  In  short,  doubt  is  a  mere 
shadow,  and  knowledge  is  the  substance  which  casts  it. 

For  these  reasons,  it  is  impossible  to  make  doubt  the 
first  principle  of  any  rational  philosophy.  When  Des- 
cartes, for  instance,  seemed  to  derive  from  absolute  doubt 
(de  omnibus  dahitandam)  his  first  and  fundamental  principle 
of  knowledge  {coglto,  ergo  sum),  on  the  ground  that  his 
own  doubt,  as  a  mode  of  thought  and  his  own  first  certain 
fact,  was  immediate  and  certain  knowledge  of  himself  as 
doubting  and  thinking,  he  seemed  to  make  doubt  itself  the 
absolutely  first  principle  of  his  system.  Yet,  since  no  one 
can  doubt  without  doubting  something  which  is  known  to 
be  there  as  the  object  of  doubt,  doubt  manifestly  presup 
poses,  as  its  condition  or  ground,  knowledge  of  the  exist- 
ence of  that  which  is  doubted  ;  and  what  Descartes  doubted 
was  the  known  mass  of  prejudices  or  prejudgments  which 
he  had  formed  before  learning  to  think  clearly  and  distinctly 
(iHiria  de  rehus  scnsihUlbus  jtidlcla  —  multa  jyraejudicia). 
Before  his  doubt  began  or  could  begin,  therefore,  he  hiiew 
the  existence  of  these  prejudices,  as  a  fact  prior  to  his 
doubt ;  and  his  doubt  itself  was  simply,  "Are  they  true  or 
false?"  Thus,  the  Cartesian  philosophy  really  founded 
itself,  not  on  doubt,  but  on  knowledge,  as  its  first  principle. 
That  recognition  of  the  existence  of  human  knowledge, 
from  the  nature  of  the  case,  must  precede  all  doubt,  and 
that  doubt  itself  has  never  been  either  a  first  principle  or 
a  first  fact,  can  be  just  as  easily  shown  with  regard  to 
every  other  system,  even  the  most  sceptical,  that  has  ever 
appeared  in  the  history  of  human  thought.    In  truth,  ab- 

VOL.   I.  — 2 


18 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


19 


solute  scepticism,  as  a  rational  system  of  universal  doubt, 
is  an  absolutely  impossible  philosophy,  because  it  would  of 
necessity  presuppose  the  known  existence  of  something  to 
doubt,  —  that  is,  some  known  pair  of  contradictory  affirma- 
tions with  one  and  the  same  essential  content.  But  that 
would  be  to  destroy  itself  as  scepticism. 

The  only  doubt,  therefore,  which  can  possibly  be  directed 
against  the  self-grounded  affirmation  that  "  human  knowl- 
edge exists"  must  take  the  form  of  two  contradictory 
affirmations:  namely,  "human  knowledge  exists,"  and 
"  human  knowledge  does  not  exist."  Absolute  scepticism 
would  be  absolute  indecision  and  uncertainty  as  to  which 
of  these  two  reciprocally  exclusive  judgments  is  true;  and 
this  doubt,  unresolved,  would  be  the  infanticide  of  philos- 
ophy at  its  very  birth.  But  the  doubt  of  the  existence  of 
human  knowledge  inevitably  resolves  and  annihilates  it- 
self.    For  it  is   itself  conditioned  on  human  knowledge 

(1)  of  the  contradictory  affirmations  themselves,  and,  further, 

(2)  of  the  necessary  exclusion  of  one  of  the  two  by  the 
other.  If  the  contradictories  themselves  and  the  nature  of 
contradiction  in  general  were  not  known,  the  necessary 
exclusion  of  one  by  the  other  could  not  be  known,  and  the 
doubt  itself,  which  is  generated  solely  by  knowledge  of  this 
reciprocal  exclusion,  would  instantly  vanish.  In  other 
words,  doubt  of  human  knowledge  is  possible  through 
human  knowledge  alone.  Thus  universal  doubt  of  human 
knowledge  absolutely  extinguishes  itself,  either  in  complete 
unconsciousness  and  cessation  of  all  thought,  or  else  in 
complete  certainty  of  the  existence  of  human  knowledge. 
Consequently,  the  affirmation  that  "human  knowledge 
exists  "  is  indubitable. 

§  12.  No  less  certain  is  it  that  this  affirmation  is  unde- 
niable. But,  supposing  that  it  can  be  denied,  the  denial 
will  read:  "Human  knowledge  does  not  exist."  This  de- 
nial must  be  either  (1)  grounded  in  a  prior  judgment,  or 
(2)  grounded  in  itself,  or  (3)  ungrounded  or  dogmatic. 

Now  no  prior  judgment  can  be  alleged  as  ground  of  the 


denial,  for  it,  like  the  judgment  it  denies,  can  have  no 
prior  condition  or  ground  itself.  The  insertion  of  the 
word  "  not "  adds  nothing  whatever  either  to  content  or  to 
ground ;  these  both  remain  unchanged.  If  the  positive 
affirmation  that  "  human  knowledge  exists  "  can  have  no 
ground  in  a  prior  affirmation  (§  9),  neither  can  the  nega- 
tive affirmation  that  "human  knowledge  does  not  exist" 
have  any  such  ground.  A  prior  ground  must  be  assigned 
to  both  or  to  neither;  and,  since  it  cannot  be  assigned  to 
the  positive  affirmation,  it  cannot  be  assigned  to  the  denial 
of  that  affirmation.  But,  even  if  a  prior  judgment  could 
be  assigned  to  the  denial  as  its  ground,  it  would  be  no 
ground  at  all,  unless  it  were  a  known  ground;  yet,  if  it 
were  a  known  ground,  it  could  not  possibly  be  a  ground  for 
the  denial  of  the  existence  of  knowledge,  because  it  would 
be  a  ground  for  the  assertion  of  it.  The  denial,  therefore, 
is  not  grounded  in  a  prior  judgment. 

But,  if  the  denial  is  grounded  in  itself,  its  content  and 
its  ground  must  be  identical.  Expressing  the  two  in 
separate  affirmations,  the  denial  will  then  read :  "  Human 
knowledge  does  not  exist  that  human  knowledge  does  not 
exist."  If  we  omit  to  press  the  obvious  criticism  that  this 
would  no  longer  be  a  denial  of  human  knowledge,  but 
rather  an  indirect  admission  of  it,  it  is  clear  that,  if  (as  has 
been  shown  in  §§  4,  8,  and  9)  the  existence  of  human 
knowledge  is  the  ground  of  all  rational  affirmation,  then, 
from  the  ground  principle  that  human  knowledge  does  not 
exist,  nothing  follows  but  the  utter  impossibility  of  rational 
affirmation  as  such,  or,  in  other  words,  the  utter  irration- 
ality, absurdity,  or  falsity  of  all  affirmations  whatever. 
But  this  conclusion  overthrows  the  denial  itself,  as  irra- 
tional, absurd,  or  false.  Manifestly,  therefore,  the  denial 
cannot  be  rationally  grounded  in  itself. 

If,  however,  despite  this  overthrow,  it  is  still  insisted 
that  the  denial  is  a  rational  affirmation,  then  it  must  have 
for  its  own  ground  the  universal  ground  of  all  rational 
affirmation:  namely,  the  existence  of  human  knowledge. 


20 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


II 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


21 


Expressed  in  full,  the  denial  will  then  read:  ''Human 
knowledge  exists  that  human  knowledge  does  not  exist." 
But  here  the  content  is  flat  contradiction  of  the  ground ; 
and,  if  the  identity  of  content  and  ground  in  a  self-grounded 
affirmation  is  the  strongest  possible  proof  of  rationality, 
certainty,  and  truth,  then  the  contradiction  of  content  and 
ground  in  one  and  the  same  affirmation  is  the  strongest 
possible  proof  of  irrationality,  absurdity,  and  confusion.  If, 
for  instance,  the  sceptic  affirms,  "  Knowledge  does  not 
exist,"  the  critic  inquires,  "/s  it  known  that  knowledge 
does  not  exist  ? "  Two  replies  alone,  yes  or  no,  are  pos- 
sible without  evasion,  and  either  is  complete  surrender  of 
the  sceptic's  position.  If  he  answers,  '*  No,  it  is  not  even 
known  that  knowledge  does  not  exist,"  tlie  critic  retorts, 
"  Then  your  original  denial,  so  understood,  contradicts  and 
destroys  itself  by  denying  its  only  rational  ground."  But, 
if  the  sceptic  answers,  "Yes,  it  is  known  that  knowledge 
does  not  exist,"  then  the  critic  retorts,  "So  understood, 
your  original  denial  contradicts  and  destroys  itself  by  deny- 
ing its  only  actual  content."  In  either  case,  since  knowl- 
edge is  the  only  ground  of  a  rational  judgment,  the 
self-contradiction  lies  imbedded  in  the  very  heart  of  the 
denial  itself,  as  internal  negation  either  of  its  own  ground 
or  of  its  own  content :  either  the  content  compels  negation 
of  the  ground,  or  the  ground  compels  negation  of  the  con- 
tent. Such  a  contradiction  as  this,  so  much  more  profound 
than  when  one  judgment  merely  contradicts  another  judg- 
ment external  to  itself,  can  arise  only  when  the  content  is 
itself  denial  of  the  ground  ;  and  this  is  possible  only  when 
the  content  is  denial  of  the  existence  of  human  knowledge, 
—  the  universal  ground  of  every  rational  judgment.  Being 
self-contradictory  in  its  very  nature,  therefore,  the  denial 
of  the  existence  of  human  knowledge  cannot  be  rationally 
grounded  in  itself. 

If,  then,  this  denial  is  neither  grounded  in  another  judg- 
ment nor  yet  in  itself,  it  must  be  wholly  ungrounded,  or 
absolutely  dogmatic.    Dogmatism  in    philosophy  can  be 


nothing  but  assertion  without  reason ;  and  it  was  a  misuse 
of  the  word,  unfortunately  perpetuated  by  his  successors, 
when  Kant  applied  it  to  the  doctrine  that  "  things  in  them- 
selves "  can  be  known,  a  doctrine  for  which,  as  will  appear 
later  (§  86),  very  weighty  reasons  can  be  rendered.  But 
an  assertion  without  reason,  in  philosophy  at  least,  is  an 
assertion  against  reason ;  and  scepticism,  if  it  ever  ventures 
on  the  denial  of  the  existence  of  human  knowledge  in  so 
many  words,  becomes  its  own  antipode  and  figures  as  abso- 
lute dogmatism.  To  show,  however,  that  a  given  judgment 
is  without  reason  or  against  reason  is  the  only  rational  way 
to  discredit  it.  Hence,  by  proving  that  the  denial  of  the 
existence  of  human  knowledge  can  be  rationally  grounded 
neither  in  another  judgment  nor  in  itself,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  vanishes  instantly  in  pure  irrationality  and  ab- 
solute dogmatism,  the  conclusion  is  made  rationally  certain 
that  the  affirmation  of  the  existence  of  human  knowledge  is 
undeniable. 

§  13.  Lastly,  the  affirmation  that  "human  knowledge 
exists "  is  undemonstrable  from  other  grounds  than  itself. 
For  the  attempt  to  demonstrate  it  from  other  grounds  than 
itself  must  Lake  for  granted  that  those  other  grounds  are 
themselves  already  known.  If  they  are  not  known,  the 
demonstration,  of  course,  does  not  demonstrate.  But  if  they 
are  known,  then  the  demonstration  assumes  and  uses  in  the 
proof  the  very  fact  which  it  professes  to  prove  :  namely,  the 
existence  of  human  knowledge  itself.  Hence  the  affirma- 
tion cannot  be  demonstrated  from  other  grounds  than  itself 
without  a  manifest  begging  of  the  question ;  and  a  j^etitlo 
principii  is  no  demonstration  at  all. 

But,  while  wholly  undemonstrable  from  other  grounds 
than  itself,  the  affirmation  has  been  proved  to  be  self- 
grounded,  that  is,  self-demonstrated,  from  the  identity  of 
its  content  and  its  ground.  The  ground  is  the  reason, 
explanation,  and  demonstration  of  the  content;  and  the 
affirmation  that  "  human  knowledge  exists  "  is  self-demon- 
strated because  the  statement  of  its  content  is  at  the  same 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHT 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


23 


time  statement  of  its  ground.     The  reason  why  it  cannot 
be  demonstrated  from  without  itself  lies  in  the  fact  that  it 
is  already  demonstrated  from  within  itself ;  the  identity  of 
its  content  with  its  ground  precludes  the  allegation  of  any 
other  or  different  ground.     This  self-demonstration  is  far 
more  than  ♦' self-evidence,"  although  it  includes  self-evi- 
dence, too.     Self-evidence  is  merely  subjective  certainty; 
it  is  certainty  to  some  particular  subject;  it  is  incommuni- 
cable  to  other  subjects ;  and,  if  denied,  it  can  in  no  way 
substantiate  itself  by  universal  reason.    But  self-demonstra- 
tion is  objective  necessity;  it  is  necessity  to  all  rational 
subjects ;  and,  if  denied,  it  substantiates  itself  by  reducing 
the  denial  to  absurdity,  as  in  §  12.    It  is  in  this  sense  that 
the  affirmation  of  the  existence  of  human  knowledge  has 
been  shown  to  be  (1)  undemonstrable  from  other  grounds 
than  itself,  but  (2)  self-grounded  or  self -demonstrated,  — 
in  other  words,  necessary,  universal,  and  objectively  valid, 
as  the  absolute  beginning  or  starting-point  of  the  Philoso- 
phy of  Philosophy.  * 

§  14.  "But,"  it  may  now  be  urged  in  objection,  "you 
make  the  absolute  beginning  of  philosophy  in  a  merely  ex- 
periential recognition  of  fact  as  fact ;  you  allege  a  merely 
given  actuality  of  experience  as  ultimate  ground  of  the 
rational  affirmation  with  which  philosophy  must  begin. 
Your  identity  of  content  and  ground  is  an  imperfect  ration- 
alization of  this  first  affirmation.     The  *  human  knowledge 

1  "Der  Hauptgrund  aller  Irrungen  dieser  Gegner  mag  wohl  derseyn 
dass  sie  sich  nicht  recht  deutlich  gemacht,  was  hewtism  heisse,  und  daher 
nicht  bedacht,  dass  aller  Demonstration  etwas  schlechthin  Undemonstrir- 
bares  zu  Grunde  liege."  (Fichte,  Zweite  Einleitung  in  die  Wissenschafts- 
lehre,  Werke,  I.  508.)  If  this  were  true,  if  all  demonstration  rested 
ultimately  on  the  undemonstrable,  it  would  follow  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  demonstration  ;  it  would  be  just  as  reasonable  to  deny  as  to  affirm 
the  undemonstrable,  since  no  reason,  no  ground,  could  be  assigned  against 
the  denial.  This  self-stultification  of  all  philosophy,  however,  is  now 
shown  to  be  as  unnecessary  as  it  is  humUiating.  The  positive  ascertain- 
ment of  a  self-derrwnstrcUed  starting  point  is  the  emancipation  of  philos- 
ophy from  all  such  humiliation,  the  condition  of  its  existence,  and  the 
guarantee  of  its  final  success. 


i 


I, 


'.'I 
.•V 


exists,'  as  experiential  content  alone,  is  indeed  rationalized 
by  the  'human  knowledge  exists,'  as  its  rational  ground; 
but  the  '  human  knowledge  exists,'  taken  as  rational  ground^ 
has  itself  a  merely  experiential  content,  and  therefore  re- 
mains itself  unrationalized.  Now  this  mere  actuality  of 
experience  in  the  ground  itself  must  be  rationalized,  before 
it  can  make  the  first  affirmation  of  philosophy  completely 
rational.  There  is  but  one  way  to  do  this.  Granting  that 
the  actual  existence  of  human  knowledge,  as  a  fact y  cannot 
be  logically  demonstrated  from  other  grounds  than  itself 
without  begging  the  question,  it  yet  ought  not  to  be  affirmed 
or  assumed  or  admitted  as  a  philosophical  principle,  least 
of  all  as  the  first  and  fundamental  principle  of  all  philoso- 
phy, without  being  first  demonstrated  as  a  possibility.  If 
philosophy  must  be  rational  knowledge,  and  if  all  rational 
knowledge  is  knowledge  by  reasons,  how  can  philosophy 
admit  even  the  existence  of  knowledge  itself  as  a  bare  or 
unrationalized  fact,  —  that  is,  without  first  establishing 
the  ultimate  reasons  or  conditions  which  make  it,  as  a  fact, 
possible  ?  Surely,  the  question,  <  How  is  knowledge  pos- 
sible ? '  must  be  answered.  Philosophy  must  prove  knowl- 
edge to  be  at  least  a  possibility,  before  it  can  begin  with 
knowledge  as  a  fact."^ 

*  "Nun  ist  die  Thatsache  der  Erkenntniss  unter  der  dogmatischen 
Voraussetzung  so  wohl  des  Empirismus  als  des  Rationalismus  weder  er- 
klart  uoch  zu  erklaren.  Daher  ist  die  nothwendige  Folge,  dass  ihre 
Moglichkeit  vemeint  wird.  Dies  geschieht  durch  Hume's  Skepticismus, 
in  welchem  die  entgegengesetzten  Richtungen  convergiren  und  ihren 
Lauf  vollenden.  Die  Philosophie  steht  an  einem  neuen,  entscheidenden 
Wendepunkt,  sie  darf  die  Moglichkeit  der  Erkenntniss  nicht  voraussetzen, 
sondern  muss  dieselbe  an  erster  Stelle  untersuchen  und  begriinden.  Die 
Natur  der  Dinge  ist  bedingt  durch  ihre  Erkennbarkeit.  Das  Erkenntuiss- 
problem  ist  das  erste  aller  Probleme.  Hume  hat  den  dogmatischen 
Schlummer  der  Philosophie  gestort ;  der  erste,  den  er  geweckt  hat,  war  Kanty 
der  Begriinder  der  kritischen  Epoche  (1781),  die  den  Entwicklungsgang 
der  neuen  Philosophie  in  die  dograatische  und  kritiache  Periode  scheidet 
und  die  Philosophie  unseres  Jahrhunderts  beherrscht."  (Kuno  Fischer, 
Geschichte  der  neuem  Philosophie,  I.  144.)  But  it  is  quite  inaccurate  to 
represent  Hume's  scepticism  as  "denying  the  possibility  of  knowledge," 


24 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


25 


§  15.  This  objection  certainly  wears  a  plausible  look, 
although  the  plausibility  disappears  on  close  and  keen 
inspection.     The  answer  to  it  falls  into  two  parts. 

In  the  first  place,  we  must  admit  that  the  demand  for  a 
complete  rationalization  of  the  "  human  knowledge  exists," 
in  order  to  fit  it  for  its  function  as  starting-point,  is  a 
perfectly  just  demand.  No  affirmation  which  is  not  itself 
completely  rational  can  be  the  first  or  fundamental  affirma- 
tion of  a  rational  philosophy.  Likewise,  we  must  admit 
that  there  is  but  one  way  to  rationalize  the  "  human  knowl- 
edge exists."  But  this  one  way  is  not  the  way  indicated. 
No  inquiry  into  the  "possibility"  of  human  knowledge 
would  have  even  a  remote  tendency  to  establish  its  actuality, 
much  less  to  rationalize  it ;  for  mere  possibility,  however 
thoroughly  determined  as  to  its  conditions  and  grounds, 
will  neither  establish  nor  rationalize  the  actuality  of  any- 
thing. The  actual  existence  of  a  thing  proves  its  possi- 
bility, but  its  mere  possibility  does  not  prove  its  actual 
existence  ;  as  was  well  expressed  in  the  old  logical  maxim, 
Ab  esse  ad  posse  valet,  a  posse  ad  esse  non  valet  consequentia. 
Moreover,  the  question  of  possibility  cannot  be  raised  at 
all  as  to  any  present  fact  —  it  is  a  question  of  the  future 
alone ;  yet  the  existence  of  human  knowledge,  presupposed 
by  the  very  question  itself  if  it  is  a  known  question,  is 
strictly  a  fact  of  the  present.  Knowledge  certainly  may 
be,  if  it  IS  ;  there  can  be  no  question  of  its  possibility,  if  it 
is  a  present  fact  of  experience,  and,  if  it  is  not  this,  the 
question  itself  cannot  be  asked  rationally.  In  truth,  the 
question  propounded  is  absolutely  irrational,  and  no  answer 
to  it  would  rationalize  anything.  The  only  way  to  ration- 
alize the  "human  knowledge  exists,"  when  looked  at  as 
ground  alone,  is  to  apply  to  it  once  more  precisely  the 

Hume  was  not  so  wanting  in  acuteness  as  to  deny  that,  and  thus  involve 
himself  in  the  contradiction  explained  above  in  §  12.  His  very  scepti- 
cism was  founded  on  recognition  of  the  "  fact  of  knowledge,"  for  it  would 
have  been  absurd  to  reduce  all  knowledge  to  imjpremons  and  ideas,  if  these 
were  not  knovm  to  exist. 


il 


:i  .1 


\\ 


same  principle  which  was  applied  to  the  original  affirma- 
tion as  a  whole.  That  is,  it  must  be  distinguished  within 
itself  as  both  content  and  ground,  identical  as  before ;  and 
the  ground  of  the  ground,  if  separately  expressed,  will  be  a 
prior  "  human  knowledge  exists."  The  same  will  be  true  of 
the  ground  of  the  ground  of  tlie  ground,  and  so  on  forever. 
Thus,  by  continually  expressing  the  antecedent  ground  of 
each  ground,  an  endless  regress  arises  :  "  Human  kuowl- 
f  edge   exists   that   human    knowledge    exists   that    human 

knowledge  exists,"  and  so  on  forever.  But  this  endless 
regress  differs  from  every  other  in  the  fact  that  all  the 
terms  in  the  endless  series  of  affirmations  are  absolutely 
identical.  Consequently,  each  one  of  the  seriated  affirma- 
tions contains  in  itself  the  whole  meaning  of  the  endless 
regress ;  each  one  affirms  absolutely  all  that  they  all  affirm 
together;  the  apparently  successive  terms  of  the  series, 
being  in  truth  absolutely  simultaneous,  are  all  simultane- 
ously affirmed  in  the  one  original  affirmation  that  "  human 
knowledge  exists ;  "  and  the  identity  of  content  and  ground 
in  this  is  identity  of  its  one  content  with  the  totality  of  the 
endless  regress  or  series  of  grounds.  Here,  then,  in  the 
original  affirmation  that  "human  knowledge  exists,"  we 
have  simply  one  experiential  content  and  one  rational 
ground  which  are  identical  with  each  other,  simultane- 
ously affirmed  in  one  judgment,  and  completely  rational- 
ized by  the  limitless  depth  of  a  reason  which  can  be 
explicated  only  by  a  limitless  series  of  reasons,  yet  which 
cannot  possibly  transcend  the  content  of  the  judgment 
itself. 

§  16.  In  the  second  place,  we  must  deny  that  the  ques- 
tion which  the  objection  emphasizes  and  makes  necessarily 
preliminary  to  the  admission  of  human  knowledge  as  a 
fact  of  existence — the  question,  namely,  ^^How  is  knowl- 
edge possible  ?  "  —  is  even  an  intelligible  question.  The 
"  possible  "  is  that  which  may  be,  but  is  not  yet ;  it  is 
the  non-actual  which  may  yet  become  actual.  Hence  the 
question,  '*How  is  knowledge  possible?"  if  it  has  any 


26 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


meaning  at  all,  must  mean,  "  How  is   knowledge  a  non- 
actual  which  may  yet  become  actual?"    But  this  ques- 
tion  is  the  acme  of  irrationality.     Assuming  as  it  does 
that  knowledge  is  a  non-actual,  a  pure  potentiality,  a  pure 
non-existent,  it  is  at  bottom  denial  or  doubt  of  the  very 
existence  of  human  knowledge.    It  proposes  to  investigate, 
on  the  hypothesis  that  knowledge  does  not  exist —  as  if 
investigation  itself  were  not  an  assumption  of  its  existence  ! 
But  the  affirmation  that  "  human  knowledge  exists  "   has 
been  already  proved  to  be  indubitable  (§  11),  and  undeni- 
able  (§  12),  and  self -demonstrated  (§  13).     Consequently, 
the  question,  "  How  is  knowledge  possible  ? ''  at  least  as 
a  question  which  must  be  solved  prior  to  the  admission  of 
knowledge  as  an  actually  existing  fact,  is  in  no  sense  and 
m  no  degree  a  reasonable  question.     What,  indeed,  could 
be  more  unreasonable  than  to  try  to  prove  or  explain  what 
IS  not  known  to  exist  ?    Knowledge  of  the  existence  of 
a  thing  must  in  the  order  of  reason  precede,  not  follow,  any 
and  every  attempt  to  prove  it  or  explain  it  or  account  for  it. 
Even  if  its  existence  is  purely  imaginary  or  hypothetical^ 
Its  actual  existence  in  imagination  or  in  hypothesis  must 
be  certainly  known  and  understood,  before  it  can  be  criti- 
cally investigated.    The  irrational  question,  therefore,  which 
the  objection  requires  to  be  answered  before  the  existence 
of  human  knowledge  can  be  allowed  or  affirmed,  is  not  even 
entitled  to  a  respectful  consideration.     The  question  itself 
presupposes  the  already  known  existence  of  human  knowl- 
edge,  for  it  must  at  least  be  known  to  be  a  question,  and  not 
an  affirmation  or  a  command.    A  great  deal  of  acute  think- 
ing has  been  wasted  in  trying  to  answer  preliminarily  this 
impossible  question  as  to  the  «  possibility  of  knowledge  " 
the  "possibility  of  experience,"  and  so  forth;  the  destruc- 
tive inversion  of  the  order  of  reason  which  is  involved  in 
these  futile  inquiries  has  diverted  many  otherwise  admira- 
ble intellects  from  the  sober  and  scientific  study  of  real 
human  knowledge  to  the  ghost-world  of  unrealities,  poten- 
tialities, and  profitless  apriorisms. 


ff 


Itt 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY  27 

"Ter  conatus  ibi  coUo  dare  brachia  circum, 
Ter  frusti-a  comprensa  manus  eflfugii  imago, 
Par  levibus  ventis  volucrique  simillima  somno." 

§  17.   What  may  justly  be  demanded  here,  however,  is 
an  answer  to  a  very  different  question  :  namely,  not  "  How 
is  knowledge  possible  ?  "  but  "  How  is   knowledge  neces- 
sary ?  "     The  possible  is  that  which  may  be,  but  is  not 
yet ;  the  actual  is  that  which  may  be,  and  is  already  j  the 
necessary  is  that  which  may  be,  and  is  already,  and  must 
be  everywhere  and  always.     To  determine  the  "conditions 
of  the  possibility^^   of  human  knowledge,  as  prior  to  its 
actuality,  is  a  problem  raised  by  unreason  alone,  for  it  is 
the   imbecile   question,    "How  is  possibility  possible?" 
But  to  determine  the  conditions  of  human  knowledge  itself, 
by  investigating  the  grounds  of  its  necessity  in  the  mode  of 
its  actuality^  —  this  is  a  problem  of  reason,  and  the  solution 
of  it  is  philosophy.    A  problem  correctly  stated  is  already 
half  solved ;  and  the  problem  of  human  knowledge  is  one, 
not  of  possibility  at  all,  but  of  actuality  in  necessity  and 
of  necessity   in    actuality.      Consequently,    the    a  priori 
method  of  investigating  this  problem  is  based  on  a  mis- 
statement of  it ;  experience  is  actuality,  reason  is  necessity, 
and  there  is  no  way  to  investigate  either  except  by  the 
a  posteriori  method  of  distinguishing  the  two  elements  of 
human   knowledge   without  separating  them,   and    deter- 
mining their  laws  as  they  stand  self-manifested  in  the 
historico-literary  form  of  seriated  affirmation.     The  abso- 
lute condition  of  such  an  a  posteriori  investigation  is  the 
known  existence  of  human  knowledge,  as  an  actual  yet 
self-grounded  fact ;  and  it  can  find  a  starting-point  nowhere 
but  in  the  primordial  affirmation  that  "  human  knowledge 
exists."  ^ 

*  "In  diese  drei  Fragen  zerlegt  sich  daher  das  Gnindproblem  der 
kritischen  Philosophic :  1.  was  ist  Erkenntniss  ?  2.  ist  die  Erkenntniss 
factisch  ?  3.  wie  ist  dieses  Factum  moglich  ?  Die  Fragen  sind  so  geord- 
net,  dass  nur,  wenn  die  vorhergehende  gelost  ist,  die  folgende  gestellt 
werden  darf."    (K.  Fischer,  Geschichte  der  neuern  Philosophie,  III.  291.) 


!l 


(I 


28 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


I 


To  repeat  what  was  said  in  §  3,  every  philosophy  which 
can  be  critically  considered  must  appear  (1)  in  the  history 
of  human  thought  and  (2)  under  the  form  of  literature. 
These  simple  and  indisputable  requirements,  however,  nec- 
essarily determine  its  historical  form  to  be  that  of  a 
written  concatenated  series  of  essential  or  constitutive 
affirmations,  a  written  body  of  philosophemes  rationally 
linked  together  in  one  seriated  and  systematic  whole.  It 
must  have,  therefore,  a  first  and  fundamental  affirmation, 
—  first  in  the  order  of  reason,  at  least,  if  not  in  that  of 
exposition,  and  first  in  both  orders  at  once,  if  it  effects 
an  unexceptionable  beginning  both  as  philosophy  and  as 
literature.  Further,  in  order  really  and  rationally  to 
begin,  this  first  and  fundamental  affirmation,  as  is  plain 
from  §§  6  and  7,  must  exhibit  absolute  identity  of  content 
and  ground,  which,  again,  can  be  exhibited  only  in  the 
affirmation  that  "human  knowledge  exists;"  and  this 
affirmation,  therefore,  either  expressed  or  implied,  either 
confessed  or  unconfessed,  is  the  actual  beginning  of  every 
philosophy  known  to  history.  So  far,  indeed,  as  any  given 
philosophy  fails  to  meet  these  several  requirements,  just 
so  far  it  will  be  justly  criticised  as  failing  to  be  genuinely 
or  completely  philosophical;  but  none  the  less  must  it 
appear  historically  as  a  series  of  successive  affirmations 
which,  as  a  system,  more  or  less  adequately  declare  the 
rational  principles  of  human  knowledge.  This  necessarily 
historico-literary  form  of  human  knowledge,  which  is 
common  to  all  the  particular  sciences  as  well  as  to  phi- 
losophy or  universal  science,  is  what  we  mean  here  by  its 
mode  of  actualiti/,  and  it  is  only  in  this  historico-literary 
form,  only  in  this  mode  of  actuality,  that  the  true  grounds 
of  necessity  which  are  inherent  in  human  knowledge  as 
such  can  be  rationally  investigated.  Hence  the  question, 
"  How  is  knowledge  necessary  ?  "  is  not  preliminary,  but 
subsequent,  to  the  admission  of  human  knowledge  itself  as 
actually  existiyig  in  the  historico'literary  form  of  seriated 
affirmation. 


!| 


.'t 


4 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


29 


§  18.  In  order,  then,  to  investigate  those  grounds  of  neces- 
sity in  human  knowledge  which  lie  latent  or  immanent 
in  its  mode  of  actuality, — that  is,  in  its  historico-literary 
form  of  seriated  affirmation,  —  let  us  begin  with  a  restate- 
ment of  some  of  our  results  and  place  them  in  a  fresh  light. 
The  affirmation  that  "  human  knowledge  exists,"  as  con- 
tent, does  not  differ  in  mmning  from  the  affirmation  that 
"  human  knowledge  exists,"  as  ground ;  the  single  affirma- 
tion that  "  human  knowledge  exists,"  has  precisely  as  much 
meaning  or  content  and  precisely  as  much  ground  as  the 
double  affirmation  that  "  human  knowledge  exists  that 
human  knowledge  exists."  Thus  the  single  affirmation, 
taken  as  a  first  principle  inclusive  of  all  its  own  grounds 
and  pregnant  with  all  its  own  rational  consequences  is  a 
self-grounded  affirmation,  which,  as  such,  constitutes  for 
philosophy  an  absolute  starting-point. 

But  it  should  be  noticed  that  the  identity  of  content 
and  ground  thus  exhibited  is  not  identitij  without  essential 
difference^  but  identitij  in  essential  difference,  since  two 
cannot  be  one  unless  they  are  two  as  well  as  one.  For  in- 
stance, A  =  A  is  identity  without  essential  difference;  but 
A  =  B  X  C  is  identity  in  essential  difference.  Such,  like- 
wise, is  the  identity  of  color  and  form  in  every  object  of 
vision,  the  identity  of  resistance  and  form  in  every  object  of 
touch,  the  identity  of  pitch,  intensity,  and  timbre  in  every 
object  of  hearing.  Such,  likewise,  is  the  identity  of  sub- 
ject and  object  in  all  self-consciousness,  the  identity  of 
Space  and  Time  in  every  event  of  history,  the  identity  of 
content  and  ground  in  the  one  self-grounded  affirmation. 
This  identity  of  content  and  ground  does  not  mean  their  in- 
difference, but  rather  their  absolute  interpenetration  in  an 
actual  cognition,  a  particular  judgment,  just  as  color  and 
form  interpenetrate  in  an  actual  object  of  vision.  The 
color  is  wherever  the  form  is,  and  vice  versa;  extinction 
of  one  would  be  extinction  of  the  other;  suppression  of 
either  would  be  the  destruction  of  both,  as  a  visual  object. 
Such  identity  as  this  interpenetration  in  space,  time,  and 


V^i 


30 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  AXIOM  OP  PHILOSOPHY 


SI 


essence  is  profounder  than  even  "indissoluble  union," 
which  might  be  merely  indissoluble  juxtaposition  without 
interpenetration.  To  mark  this  profoundest  interconnec- 
tion, the  word  "identity"  will  serve,  if  protected  from 
meaning  indifference  or  absolute  sameness,  by  bearing  in 
mind  that  the  two  elements  are  not  only  identical,  but 
also  different  and  distinguishable.  For  instance,  when 
Kant  teaches  that  "  intuitions  without  concepts  are  blind, 
and  concepts  without  intuitions  are  empty,"  he  declares 
their  indissoluble  union,  but  not  their  absolute  interpene- 
tration; for  he  derives  them  from  experience  and  reason 
respectively  as  separate  products  of  separate  actions,  and 
not  as  one  inseparable  product  of  one  inseparable  action 
(§  24)  —  as  if  color  could  be  known  by  sense  without  form 
being  known  by  understanding,  in  one  indivisible  act  of 
sense-perception.  Color  and  form  are  inseparable  in  the 
object  as  mere  phaenomenon ;  therefore,  sense  and  under- 
standing are  inseparable  in  the  perception  of  it  as  mere 
phaenomenon.  Content  and  ground  are  equally  inseparable, 
equally  identical  in  difference,  in  the  self-grounded  judg- 
ment. Content  as  content  is  not  ground  as  ground ;  it  is 
only  when  ground  is  taken  for  content,  also,  in  a  par- 
ticular judgment  which  is  its  own  ground,  that  identity 
of  content  and  ground,  as  identity  in  difference,  can 
possibly  arise. 

Inasmuch,  further,  as  rational  affirmations,  in  order  not 
to  be  one  and  the  same  affirmation,  must  have  different 
contents,  yet,  in  order  to  be  rational,  must  all  have  one 
and  the  same  ground  in  existent  human  knowledge,  it  is 
clear  that  there  can  be  only  one  self-grounded  affirmation, 
—  that  in  which  the  existence  of  human  knowledge,  as 
this  one  universal  ground,  is  taken  as  particular  content, 
also.  This  affirmation  alone  will  exhibit  that  identity  in 
difference  between  content  and  ground  which  is  necessary 
in  order  to  render  the  affirmation  itself  self-grounded,  self- 
demonstrated,  and  therefore  both  first  and  certain^  as  a 
philosophical  starting-point. 


h 
II  ( 


But,  as  appeared  in  §  15,  the  affirmation  that  "human 
knowledge  exists,"  even  when  taken  as  ground  alone,  must 
be  itself  resolvable  into  content  and  ground,  and  this 
ground  again  into  content  and  ground,  and  so  on  indefi- 
nitely. Thus  an  endless  regress  arises,  which  may  be 
exhibited  to  the  eye  as  follows:  — 


Human  knowledge  \  Con^nt 
"i«'«=  (Ground  = 


Content 

II 
Ground  = 


I  Content 
II  ( Content 

r 


Ground  = 


Ground  = 


( Content 


\ 


Ground,  etc. 


But,  in  this  extraordinary  regress,  all  the  contents  are 
absolutely  one  without  difference,  and  all  the  grounds, 
likewise,  are  absolutely  one  without  difference;  while  the 
regress  itself,  from  the  equation  in  each  term  of  content 
and  ground  as  identity  in  difference,  is  the  absolute  equa- 
tion of  all  the  terms  as  identity  without  difference.  That 
is,  the  whole  endless  regress  is  absolutely  contained  in  each 
of  its  own  terms,  and  so  is  itself  abolished;  for  such  a 
series  as  5  =  5  =  5  =  5  =  5  is  no  real  series  at  all,  but  is 
absolutely  equivalent  to  5  alone. 

§  19.  At  this  point,  however,  a  formidable  objection 
may  be  interposed :  "  You  offer  us,  then,  as  the  first  prin- 
ciple and  only  possible  starting-point  of  philosophy,  an 
absolutely  self -grounded  affirmation.  But,  if  self -grounded, 
it  must  be  self-existent.  Whatever  has  no  ground  outside 
of  itself  must  derive  its  existence  from  itself  alone;  it 
must  exist  solely  from  some  inner  causal  necessity  of  its 
own  being  or  nature.  In  proving,  therefore,  that  your 
affirmation  is  self-grounded,  you  cut  it  off  from  all  depend- 
ence on  any  cause  but  itself;  you  prove  it  to  be  an  abso- 
lute causa  sui,  a  self-existent  being;  and,  since  this,  if 
maintained  of  a  mere  judgment  or  proposition,  is  undeni- 
ably absurd,  you  overshoot  the  mark,  prove  too  much,  and 
leave  philosophy,  at  last,  without  any  rational  beginning 
at  all." 

This  objection,  strong  as  it  may  seem,  has  the  weakness 


I 


32 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOrHT 


11^ 


f 


I 


of  confounding  the  distinction  of  ground  and  cause.     The 
ground  is  a  reason  of  knowing  (principium  ratlonls  svffi. 
eientis  cof/noscendi,  which  Schopenhauer  interprets  as,  "No 
one  can  admit  anything  to  be  true  without  knowing  why," 
—  this  Wiy  being  the  ground).     The  cause,  however,  is  a 
reason  of  becoming  {p>rlncipium  rationis  sufficientis  fiendi, 
which  Schopenhauer  would  interpret  as,  "No  change  can 
take  place  without  a  determinant  in  an  entire  state  of 
antecedent  conditions  or  factors,"  — this  detei^inant  being 
the  cause).     The  law  of  rationality  (ground  and  result,  or 
reason  and  consequent)  is  by  no  means  the  law  of  causality 
(cause  and  effect) ;  yet  the  above  objection  rests  wholly  on 
a  confused  identification  of  the  two.     It  must  be  admitted, 
however,  that  an   inquiry  as  to  ground  leads   at   last   to 
cause,  as  will  a])pear  below,  and  that  both  laws  are  neces- 
sarily  involved  in  the  present  instance. 

The  affirmation  that  "  human  knowledge  exists  "  is  self- 
grounded,  but  not  self-caused.  Every  rational  affirmation 
or  judgment,  as  such,  has  a  cause  as  well  as  a  ground, 
because  it  is  essentially  an  act  of  knowledge.  As  an  "act 
of  ktiotvledf/e,"  it  must  have  a  rational  ground,  or  reason 
why  it  is  known;  as  an  ^^ act  of  knowledge,"  it  must  have 
a  i)ractical  ground,  a  purpose  or  reason  why  it  is  dojie  ; 
but,  as  an  ''act  of  knowledge,''  it  must  also  have  an  efficient 
cause,  or  knowing  agent,  from  which  it  proceeds.  So  far 
as  its  meaning  alone  is  concerned,  it  is  a  manifestation  of 
intelligence;  but,  so  far  as  its  production  or  pronunciation 
alone  is  concerned,  it  is  a  manifestation  of  energy.  Apart 
from  its  character  as  an  act,  every  rational  affirmation  is  a 
cognition,  a  judgment,  a  linking  of  subject  and  predicate; 
it  must,  therefore,  have  a  rational  ground,  and  involve  the 
law  of  rationality.  But,  apart  from  its  character  as  some 
special  purport,  every  affirmation,  whether  rational  or  ir. 
rational,  is  an  event,  a  change  of  state,  an  effect;  it  must, 
therefore,  have  a  cause,  and  involve  the  law  of  causality. 

Considered,  therefore,  as  at  once  a   cognition    and  an 
effect,  every  rational  affirmation  must  have  its  ground  and 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


33 


\ 


i, 


its  cause  in  one^  distinguishable  but  inseparable.  This 
ground-cause,  then,  can  be  nothing  but  a  knowing  energy, 
an  active  intelligence,  whence  the  affirmation,  as  both  cog- 
nition and  effect,  proceeds.  In  other  words,  the  ground- 
cause  or  cause-ground  of  every  rational  affirmation  can 
only  be  a  rational  affirmer  affirming  for  a  reason  ;  for  ex- 
ample, a  philosopher  philosophizing.  But  no  affirmation  as 
such  can  be  its  own  cause.  It  may  be  its  own  ground,  pro- 
vided the  content  is  identical  with  the  reason  why  it  is 
known,  but  it  cannot  be  its  own  cause,  because  it  is  not 
itself  a  knowing  energy  or  active  intelligence.  Conse- 
quently, the  affirmation  that  "human  knowledge  exists," 
although  (as  already  explained)  self-grounded,  is  not  self- 
caused.  So  far,  therefore,  as  the  objection  infers  self- 
causation  or  self -existence  from  simple  self-groundedness  or 
self-explanation,  it  has  no  critical  force  whatever.  Never- 
theless, it  serves  a  useful  purpose  in  developing  the  neces- 
sity of  distinguishing  the  cause  and  the  ground  of  the 
affirmation  in  question. 

§  20.  But  the  subject  is  not  yet  exhausted.  A  strictly 
rational  regress  of  grounds  as  such  leads  to  the  same  con- 
clusion as  to  cause,  strengthening,  deepening,  and  enlarging 
it,  —  not,  of  course,  the  regress  of  grounds  already  consid- 
ered in  §§  15  and  18,  which  explains  the  content  as  content 
alone,  and  abolishes  itself,  but  rather  the  regress  which 
is  to  explain  that  identity  of  content  and  ground  which  con- 
stitutes the  self-groundedness  of  the  affirmation  as  a  whole. 

As  sufficiently  explained  in  what  has  preceded,  the  affir- 
mation that  "human  knowledge  exists,"  taken  as  content 
alone,  has  its  ratio  cognoscendi  in  the  same  affirmation  that 
"  human  knowledge  exists,"  taken  as  ground  alone ;  and 
this  identity  of  content  and  ground  makes  the  affirmation 
self-grounded.  But  what  is  the  ground  of  this  identity 
itself,  and  why  must  it  be  affirmed  ?  If,  as  is  said  above, 
the  cause  of  every  rational  affirmation  is  a  rational  affirmer 
affirming  for  a  reason,  what  is  his  reason  for  making  this 
particular  affirmation,  and  why  is  it  a  necessary  reason? 

VOL.    1, — 3 


I' 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


35 


84 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


The  reason  why  the  affirmation  is  known  to  be  true,  when 
once  made,  is  the  fact  that  the  affirmation  of  its  content  is 
identical  with  the  affirmation  of  its  ground  or  ratio  cognos- 
cendi ;  but  what  is  the  necessary  reason  why  it  must  be 

made  at  all  ? 

Now  the  rational  necessity  for  making  it,  as  an  actual 
affirmation,  must  lie  in  the  deeply  hidden  ground  of  the 
strange  and  paradoxical  identity  it  exhibits.  What  is  this 
necessity?  Even  as  identity  in  difference,  how  can  a  purely 
experiential  content  be  identical  with  a  purely  rational 
ground  ?  Clearly,  it  cannot,  —  clearly,  there  can  be  no 
self-grounded  affirmation  at  all,  —  if  experience  and  reason 
cannot  be  identical  themselves.  But,  if  experience  and 
reason  can  be  identical  themselves,  they  must  be  identical 
in  a  self-grounded  affirmatiou,  provided  such  an  affirmation 
can  be  produced.  The  identity  of  a  purely  experiential 
content  and  a  purely  rational  ground,  therefore,  in  an  actu- 
ally producible  affirmation,  will  be  the  necessary  consequence, 
in  that  particular  case,  of  a  necessary  and  universal  condi- 
tion: namely,  the  identity  of  experience  and  reason  in 
human  knowledge  itself. 

Now  the  affirmation  that  "  human  knowledge  exists  "  is  a 
self-grounded  affirmation,  and  does  actually  exhibit  the 
identity  of  an  experiential  content  and  a  rational  ground. 
This  has  been  proved  above,  in  §§9  and  10,  beyond  all  rea- 
sonable denial  or  doubt.  The  mere  fact,  then,  that  a  self- 
grounded  affirmation  in  which  this  identity  demonstrably 
exists,  and  which  stands,  therefore,  as  a  proved  concrete 
case  of  it,  can  be  and  has  been  actually  produced,  itself  dem- 
onstrates the  still  deeper  identity  of  experience  and  reason 
in  human  knowledge  as  such.  For,  as  has  just  been  shown, 
the  identity  of  experience  and  reason  in  human  knowledge 
itself  is  the  necessary  condition  of  the  identity  of  experien- 
tial content  and  rational  ground  in  the  affirmation  of  human 
knowledge  :  or,  conversely  stated,  the  identity  of  content 
and  ground  in  the  affirmation  of  human  knowledge  is  the 
necessary  consequence  or  result  of  the  identity  of  experience 


and  reason  in  human  knowledge  itself.  But,  as  Kant 
pointed  out,  if  a  conditioned  is  given,  the  totality  of  its 
conditions  is  given  in  and  with  it.  Since,  then,  the  identity 
of  content  and  ground  in  the  affirmation  is  given  as  an 
a>ctual  conditioned,  the  actual  identity  of  experience  and 
reason  in  human  knowledge  is  given  in  and  with  it,  as  its 
immanent  necessary  condition :  the  actuality  of  the  condi- 
tioned demonstrates  both  the  actuality  of  the  condition  and 
its  necessity  as  a  condition.  Hence  the  affirmation  that 
"  human  knowledge  exists  "  is  not  only  actual  identity  of 
its  own  content  and  ground,  but  also  both  actual  and  rela- 
tively necessary  identity  of  experience  and  reason  in  the 
human  knowledge  whose  existence  it  affirms.  Here,  then, 
we  have  discovered  that  deeper  ground  of  the  "human 
knowledge  exists,"  —  that  rational  necessity  of  human 
knowledge  immanent  in  its  mode  of  actuality,  —  of  which 
we  were  in  quest  (§  17).  Still,  however,  we  have  not  yet 
reached  a  necessary  ground  or  reason  why  this  particular 
affirmation  must  be  itself  made.  To  find  it,  we  must  look 
deeper  still. 

§  21.  Evidently,  the  identity  in  difference  of  experience 
and  reason  in  human  knowledge  must  be  itself  explained. 
As  already  stated  in  §  9,  the  existence  of  human  knowledge 
is  not  a  necessary  fact  per  se  ;  it  did  not  always  exist ;  how, 
then,  can  it  be  at  all  necessary  to  affirm  its  existence  ? 
Nay,  how  can  its  "existence,"  in  any  intelligible  sense  be 
affirmed  at  all  ?  Knowledge  itself  is  neither  a  person  nor 
a  thing ;  it  neither  experiences  nor  reasons  ;  how,  then,  can 
it  exist  as  the  identity  in  difference  of  experience  and 
reason  ?  Is  not  this  a  pure  paradox  ?  These  questions 
are  perfectly  fair,  and  the  objections  they  express  must  be 
as  fairly  met.  To  find  answers  to  them  which  shall  be 
neither  evasive  nor  vague,  let  us  pursue  a  little  farther  the 
path  of  the  rigorous  regress  of  grounds  or  conditions. 

The  identity  of  experience  and  reason  in  human  knowl- 
edge, although  it  is  the  necessary  condition  and  ratio  suffi- 
dens  cognoscendi  of  the  identity  of  content  and  ground  in  the 


86 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


affirmation  that  "human  knowledge  exists,"  must  have 
itself  a  necessary  condition,  a  ratio  sufficiens  cognoscendi. 
Taken  by  itself  alone,  it  is  clearly  not  an  ultimate  condition 
or  ground,  for  in  itself  it  is  not  an  explanation,  but  a  para- 
dox.    In  truth,  this  identity  of  experience  and  reason  in 
human  knowledge,  at  which  we  have  arrived  as  a  necessary 
result,  must  be  candidly  admitted  to  be  a  direct  contradic- 
tion of  the  fashionable  metaphysic  ;  for,  if  true,  it  subverts 
and  sweeps  away  that  doctrine  of  the  necessary  separation 
of  sense  and  intellect,  of  experience  and  reason,  which  lies 
at  the  very  foundation  of  the  whole  idealistic  philosophy, 
—  notably  as  illustrated  in  the  "pure  reason"  and  "pure 
a  priori  knowledge  "  of  Kant,  and  the  "  pure  thought," 
"  absolute  idealism,"  or  "  panlogism  "  of  Hegel.     All  these 
are  merely  different  names  for  reason  divorced  from  experi- 
ence.    The  "pure,"  in  these  and  kindred  phrases,  means 
"  purified  from  all  experience ; "  it  has  no  other  meaning. 
Hence  the  denial  of  any  possible  or  conceivable  separation 
of  experience  and  reason,  which  is  of  course  implied  in  the 
doctrine  of  their  necessary  inseparability  or  identity  in 
difference,  as  the   essential  nature  of  human  knowledge 
itself,  marks  the  profound  character  of  the  change  which 
reformed  modern  philosophy,  aiming  at  that  Philosophy  of 
Philosophy  which  is  more  than  the  history  or  any  possible 
criticism  of  it,  finds  it  necessary  to  make  in  its  treatment 
of  the  philosophical  problem.    In  opposition  to  the  tradi- 
tional idealistic  way  of  seeking  the  necessity,  universality, 
and  objective  validity  of  reason  through  a  rigorous  exclu- 
sion of  all  empirical  elements   (an  exclusion  never  yet 
accomplished,  as  Trendelenburg,  Prantl,  und  others,  have 
so  ably  and  conclusively  proved  in  the  case  of  Hegel),  re- 
formed modern  philosophy  seeks  the  same  object  by  the 
realistic  way  of  recognizing  the  necessary  inseparability 
(that  is,  the  identity  in  difference)  of  experience  and  reason 
in  all   human  knowledge   whatever,  and  thereby  finding 
room  for  all  the  facts,  instead  of  crushing  half  the  facts 
out  of  sight.    How  it  arrives  at  this  identity  of  experience 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


37 


and  reason  has  now  been  shown ;  but,  if  it  stops  there,  it 
falls  short  of  explanation,  and  ends  in  a  paradox.  Hence 
the  deep-lying  ground  of  this  very  identity  must  now  be 
sought,  as  the  only  possible  explanation  and  the  only  con- 
vincing proof  of  the  scientific  soundness  of  the  realistic 
way  of  philosophizing. 

§  22.  The  proof  that  experience  and  reason  are  identical 
in  human  knowledge  was  drawn  above,  in  §  20,  from  the 
simple  actuality  of  a  self-grounded  affirmation,  which 
merely  exemplified  it  in  one  proved  and  concrete  case. 
This,  however,  was  a  proof  of  the  mere  fact  or  actuality 
of  the  identity  in  a  particular  instance,  not  of  its  inherent 
rational  necessity.  Hence  this  proof  had  to  be  supple- 
mented by  another,  showing  that  experience  and  reason 
must  be  identical  in  human  knowledge,  because  that  identity 
is  related  to  the  identity  of  content  and  ground  in  the  self- 
grounded  affirmation  as  necessary  condition  to  necessary 
consequence.  But  this  necessity,  again,  is  not  an  absolute 
or  inherent  rational  necessity,  but  only  a  relative  necessity 
with  reference  to  a  consequence  different  from  and  external 
to  itself ;  that  is,  the  condition  (identity  of  experience  and 
reason  in  human  knowledge  as  such)  and  the  consequence 
(identity  of  experiential  content  and  rational  ground  in 
the  self-grounded  affirmation),  being  a  pair  necessarily  re- 
lated to  each  other  by  their  rational  connection  as  condition 
and  consequence,  are  only  as  a  pair  that  necessary  rational 
condition  which  had  to  be  discovered,  in  order  to  convert 
the  self-grounded  affirmation  itself  from  the  mere  actuality 
which  it  apparently  was  into  the  rational  necessity  which 
it  really  is  and  is  now  seen  to  be.  So  far,  now,  the  identity 
of  experience  and  reason  in  human  knowledge  is  certainly 
shown  to  be  necessary  per  aliud  —  necessary  itself  through 
the  necessary  consequence  to  which  it  stands  related  as  the 
necessary  condition.  But  it  is  not  yet  shown  to  be  inher- 
ently necessary  per  se,  as  being  itself  the  necessary  conse- 
quence of  another  ground  lying  more  deeply  still  as  its 
own  condition:   it  must  remain  a  mere  fact,  although  a 


38 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


necessary  fact,  until  it  is  shown  to  be  inherently  necessary 
from  an  immanent  ground  of  its  own.  Not  until  this  im- 
manent ground  of  its  own  is  discovered  and  proved,  will 
the  identity  of  experience  and  reason  in  human  knowledge 
be  explained,  comprehended,  or  relieved  of  its  seemingly 
paradoxical  character.  The  problem  before  us,  therefore, 
is  to  discover  and  prove  that  this  identity  is  not  only  the 
necessary  condition  of  a  consequence,  but  also  itself  the 
necessary  consequence  of  a  condition  —  a  condition  which 
shall  be  immanent  in  itself,  yet  at  the  same  time  more 
widely  universal.     Can  the  problem  be  solved  ? 

§  23.  The  problem  itself  is  to  show  that  the  identity  of 
experience  and  reason  in  human  knowledge,  already  proved 
as  a  fact,  is  necessarily  grounded  in  a  deeper  identity, 
immanent  in  itself,  yet  more  widely  universal.  If  soluble 
at  all,  this  problem  can  be  solved  only  by  analyzing  the 
identity  in  which  the  deeper  identity  must  lie  hidden,  as 
the  immanent  necessary  condition  of  which  the  former  is 
itself  the  necessary  consequence  or  result. 

What,  then,  is  meant  by  "  experience, "  and  by  "  reason," 
and  why  must  they  be  at  once  different  and  identical,  dis- 
tinguishable yet  inseparable,  in  human  knowledge  ? 

Experience  is  observation  of  single  existent  facts,  per- 
ception of  given  particulars,  knowledge  of  actual  individual 
units  of  existence  {Erfahrungsgegenstdnde) ;  while  reason 
is  knowledge  of  their  principles,  their  necessary  relations 
and  universal  kinds  and  constitutive  forms  {Principien^ 
Schlussreihen,  Ideen).  It  is  altogether  immaterial  whether 
these  units  exist  in  Being,  as  particular  things  in  them- 
selves or  particular  relations  in  things,  or  whether  they 
exist  merely  in  Thought,  as  particular  ideas,  feelings,  con- 
cepts, intuitions,  sensations,  states  of  consciousness  in 
general:  experience  remains  knowledge  of  the  units,  and 
reason  remains  knowledge  of  the  universals.  Nothing,  at 
bottom,  but  the  difference  in  the  objects  known  determines 
the  difference  in  the  modes  of  knowledge ;  and  the  in- 
separability of  the  units  and  the  universals  is  the  insepara- 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


39 


bility  of  experience  and  reason.  No  unit  of  existence, 
whether  in  Being  or  in  Thought,  can  exist  unrelated  to 
its  kind;  to  be  out  of  relation  is  to  be  out  of  existence 
itself,  for  all  existent  units  must  coexist,  and  coexistence 
is  itself  a  relation  of  kind.  No  unit  of  existence,  more- 
over, can  exist  either  out  of  particular  relations  (e.  g.  to 
others  of  its  kind)  or  out  of  universal  relations  (e.  g,  to  the 
whole  of  its  kind),  —  every  unit  must  exist  in  both  at  once ; 
for  every  unit  exists  only  as  one  of  its  kind,  and  every 
kind  exists  only  as  all  of  its  units.  Since,  then,  experience 
is  knowledge  of  actual  particulars  or  units  of  existence, 
and  reason  is  knowledge  of  necessary  universals  or  kinds 
of  existence,  it  follows  that  the  distinctive  difference  be- 
tween experience  and  reason,  as  modes  of  knowledge,  is 
determined  by  the  essential  difference  of  their  objects  as 
such;  units  of  existence  are  the  objects  of  perception 
("external"  and  "internal"),  while  universals  of  exist- 
ence are  the  objects  of  intellect,  and  the  difference  of  sense 
and  intellect,  or  of  experience  and  reason,  as  modes  of 
knowledge,  is  in  the  last  analysis  determined  by  a  difference 
of  nature  in  the  objects  known.  At  bottom,  experience 
and  reason  are  identical  in  knowledge  because  units  and 
universals  are  identical  in  existence,  —  identical,  that  is,  in 
difference,  not  without  difference,  —  as  specimens  and  species. 
From  the  necessity,  therefore,  that  every  thing  and  every 
kind  (that  is,  every  real  or  possible  object  of  human  knowl- 
edge) must  be  at  once  both  individual  and  universal^  it 
necessarily  follows  that  every  possible  human  cognition 
must  be  derived  both  from  experience  and  from  reason,  — 
that  is,  must  be  at  once  both  experiential  and  rational.  In 
general,  human  knowledge  itself  can  exist  only  as  the 
necessary  identity  in  difference  of  experience  and  reason  in 
man,  because  man  himself,  as  the  unit-object  of  his  own 
self-knowledge,  is  necessarily  both  individual  and  univer- 
sal, —  individual  as  a  unit  of  existence,  universal  as  a  kind 
of  existence.  Human  self-consciousness  itself  is  nothing 
but  man^s  knowledge  of  his  own  existence.    From  the  fact 


40 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


that  his  existence  is  both  individual  and  universal,  it 
necessarily  follows  that  his  knowledge  of  it  is  both  ex- 
periential and  rational.  Consequently,  the  identity  in 
difference  of  experience  and  reason  in  human  knowledge, 
as  a  necessary  consequence,  is  rationally  grounded  upon 
the  deeper  identity  of  existence  and  knowledge  in  human 
self-consciousness,  as  its  necessary  condition.  And  this 
deeper  identity,  immanent  in  the  former  identity  as  its 
self-contained,  yet  more  widely  universal  condition,  is  pre- 
cisely what  we  sought  to  find. 

§  24.  This  result  is  itself  a  sufficient  criticism  of  philo- 
sophical or  speculative  idealism.  Idealism,  in  its  typical 
form  as  developed  in  Germany  during  the  first  third  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  has  for  its  distinctive  foundation  or 
characteristic  principle  the  complete  separation  of  experience 
a7id  reason,  and  the  complete  isolation  of  reason  as  "pure 
reason,"  "pure  thought,"  "pure  productivity,"  "pure 
thinking-process,"  or,  in  the  last  degree  of  abstraction, 
"  pure  law  of  the  thinking-process."  Its  final  and  logical 
result  is  that  "  pure  thought "  produces  the  total  object  of 
knowledge  absolutely  out  of  itself,  according  to  a  law  im- 
manent in  its  own  constitutive  process  and  known  as  Dia- 
lectic. That  is,  nothing  is  at  last  knowable  but  ideas, 
notions,  or  states  of  consciousness,  which  *^  pure  self -ac- 
tivity "  creates  out  of  itself  and  to  which  it  imparts  all 
those  forms,  elements,  categories,  or  relations,  which  render 
them  possible  objects  of  knowledge.  The  word  "  pure,"  in 
all  the  above  or  kindred  phrases,  simply  means  "  pure  from 
experience,"  and  has  no  other  meaning ;  it  formulates  the 
absolute  separation  of  experience  and  reason,  as,  for  in- 
stance, is  done  by  Kant,  when  he  expressly  defines  the 
word  "  pure  "  as  "  containing  nothing  empirical."  ^    Ideal- 

1  "Bei  einer  Untersuchung  der  reinen  (nichts  Empirisches  enthalten- 
den)  Elemente  der  menschlichen  Erkenntniss  gelang  es  mir,"  u.  s.  f.  (Pro- 
legomena, Werke,  IV.  71,  ed.  Hart).  Still  more  emphatically:  "Wir 
werden  also  im  Verfolg  imter  Erkenntnissen  a  pi'iori  nicht  solche  ver- 
stehen,  die  von  dieser  oder  jener,  sondem  die  schlechUtrdings  von  aller 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


41 


ism  thus  reduces  all  knowledge,  as  such,  to  reason  alone, 
separates  it  from  experience,  and  denies  the  name  of 
knowledge  to  experience  altogether,  except  so  far  as 
experience  takes  and  keeps  the  ^^  a  priori  concepts"  or 
"  categories  "  of  reason  itself.  Hence  it  finds  nothing  in- 
telligible in  simple  "existence,"  "the  actual,"  or  "the 
given." ^ 

For  example,  Cohen,  ridiculing  the  "given  thing  in  it- 
self," says  pithily  enough  :  "  To  be  sure,  this  '  being  given 
[in  itself]'  we  positively  cannot  understand;  for  *to  be 
given'  means  Ho  be  related  to  experience.' "^  In  point 
of  fact,  "  to  be  given  in  itself "  means  "  to  be  at  the  same 
time  related  to  experience  and  internally  self-related ; "  for 

Erfahrung  uuabhangig  stattfinden.  Ihnen  siud  empirisclie  Erkenntnisse, 
oder  solche,  die  uur  a  posteriori,  d.  i.  durch  Erfahrung  moglich  sind,  ent- 
gegengesetzt.  Von  den  Erkenntnissen  a  priori  heissen  aber  diejenigen 
rein,  denen  gar  nichts  Empirisches  beigemischt  ist."  (Kritik  der  reinen 
Vernunft,  Werke,  III.  34.)  '*Alle  unsere  Erkenntniss  hebt  von  den 
Sinnen  an,  geht  von  da  zum  Verstande  und  endigt  bei  der  Vernunft,  iiber 
welche  nichts  Hciheres  in  uns  angetroffen  wird,  den  Stoff  der  Anschauung 
zu  bcarbeiten  und  unter  die  hochste  Einheit  des  Denkens  zu  briugen." 
{Ibid.  in.  247.)  This  is  separation,  and  not  merely  distinction,  of  expe- 
rience and  reason.  Falckenberg  so  understands  the  matter :  "  Die  Scho- 
lastiker  bezeichneten  mit  a  priori  die  Erkenntnis  aus  den  Ursachen  (aus 
dem,  was  vorhergeht),  mit  a  posteriori  die  aus  den  Wirkungen.  Kant 
benutzt,  nach  Leibnitz'  und  Lamberts  Vorgang,  die  Termini  zum  Ausdruck 
des  Gegensatzes  :  Erkenntnis  aus  Vernunft  —  aus  Erfahrung.  Apriori  ist 
ein  ohne  Beihilfe  der  Erfahrung  gewonnenes  Urteil,  und  zwar,  wenn  der 
Satz,  aus  dem  es  abgeleitet  worden,  auch  wiederum  von  Erfahrung  unab- 
hiingig  ist,  absolut  apriori,  anderenfalls  relativ  apriori."  (Geschichte  der 
neueren  Philosophie,  1892,  p.  272,  footnote.) 

1  J.  F.  Reiff,  Der  Anfang  der  Philosophie,  1840,  p.  10 :  *'  Es  gibt  keine 
Leiter  zur  Philosophie  ;  denn  sie  entsteht  nur  da,  wo  ich  mit  einem  Male 
alles  Gegebne  von  mir  werfe." 

2  H.  Cohen,  Kants  Theorie  der  Erfahrung,  1885,  p.  503  :  "  Zwar 
dieses  Gegebensein  konnen  wir  schlechterdings  nicht  verstehen  ;  denn 
gegebensein  heisst 'auf  Erfahrung  bezogen  sein.'  .  .  .  Indessen  muss  sich 
doch  die  Erfahrung  selbst  als  Ganzes  und  somit  als  Ding  denken  lassen  : 
das  ist  das  Ding  an  sich,  nicht  als  Ding  des  analytischen  Denkens,  noch 
als  Gegenstand  der  Erfahrung,  sondem  Erfahrung  selbst  als  Gegenstand 
gedacht." 


^/^•f^rnt 


42 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


43 


internal  self-relation  necessarily  renders  the  "object  of 
experience  "  a  "thing  in  itself."  But  a  sufficient  reply  to 
Cohen's  airy  sophism  is  simply  to  ask :  Is  not  experience 
itself  given  ?  And  is  it  anything  but  given  ?  And,  if  we 
cannot  understand  experience,  what  can  we  understand? 
Cohen  had  been  already  answered  in  advance  by  Lotze, 
when  he  said :  "  Metaphysic  has  not  to  construct  reality, 
but  to  recognize  it,  —  to  investigate  the  inner  order  of  the 
given,  not  to  deduce  the  given  from  that  which  is  not 
given."  *  But  Cohen  unconsciously  and  amusingly  refutes 
himself  on  the  same  page,  by  confessing  that  experience  as 
a  whole  is,  after  all,  at  once  an  "object  of  thought"  and 
a  "thing  in  itself!"  If  an  "object  of  thought  "can  be 
thus  a  merely  given  "  thing  in  itself,"  so  likewise  may  an 
"object  of  experience "  be  a  merely  given  "thing  in  it- 
self;" and  Cohen,  now  conceding  that  he  can  "think" 
(/.  e.  "  understand  ")  the  "  given  thing  in  itself,"  pricks 
the  bubble  of  his  own  objection. 

The  present  condition  of  philosophical  thought  in  Ger- 
many, as  the  complete  decay  of  speculative  idealism  in  the 
land  of  its  birth  and  complete  recognition  of  the  identity  of 
experience  and  reason,  is  well  indicated  by  Professor  Paul- 
sen, of  Berlin,  as  follows  :  — 

"  It  is  the  common  and  fundamental  characteristic  of  the  Philos- 
ophies of  Fichte,  Schelliug,  and  Hegel,  that  they  are  convinced  of 
their  ability  to  produce  a  system  of  absolute  knowledge  of  reality 
through  a  new  process  of  rational  thought,  independently  of  ex- 
perience and  the  experiential  sciences.  *  The  Wissensckajlslehre^' 
says  Fichte,  <  makes  absolutely  no  inquiries  about  experience,  and 
pays  not  the  slightest  heed  to  it.  It  would  necessarily  be  true, 
even  if  there  could  be  no  experience  at  all ;  and  it  would  be  certain 
a  priori  that  all  possible  future  experience  would  have  to  conform 
to  the  laws  which  it  has  established.'    Similarly,  at  the  beginning 

1  H.  Lotze,  Metaphysik,  1884,  p.  163  :  "  Die  Metaphysik  hat  nicht 
die  Wirklichkeit  zu  machen,  sondern  sie  anzuerkennen ;  die  innere  Ord- 
nung  des  Gegebenen  zu  erforschen,  nicht  das  Gegehene  abzuleiten  von 
dem,  was  eben  nicht  gegeben  ist." 


of  the  *  Chief  Features  of  the  Present  Age,'  he  declares :  *  The 
philosopher  would  pursue  his  business  (here  the  construction  of 
history)  without  regard  to  any  experience,  and  absolutely  a  priori, 
and  would  of  necessity  be  able  a  priori  to  describe  the  whole  course 
of  time  and  all  possible  epochs  of  it.'  Precisely  as  Fichte  deduces 
history  a  priori,  SchelUng  constructs  Nature  a  priori,  occasionally 
pouring  out  his  scorn  upon  '  the  blind  and  senseless  kind  of  natu- 
ral science  which  has  everywhere  established  itself  since  the  de- 
struction of  philosophy  by  Bacon  and  of  physics  by  Boyle  and 
Newton.'  In  Hegel,  the  speculative  philosophy  attains  its  ripe 
perfection ;  all  reality  is  constructed  by  him  out  of  pure  categories 
(Begrijffe)  ;  reality  and  truth  coincide  in  his  system.  By  its  side 
stand  the  empirical  sciences;  not  ex  principiis,  out  of  internal 
reason,  but  ex  datis,  out  of  external  experience,  they  heap  up  a 
mass  of  superficial  information  of  all  sorts  about  particulars. 
Genuine  knowledge  of  reality  is  the  philosophical ;  its  form,  the 
dialectical  development  of  the  Begrijf,  is  nothing  else  than  the  sub- 
jective repetition  of  the  objective  development-process  of  the  Idea, 
that  is,  of  reality  itself."  ^ 

But: 

"  Our  age  no  longer  believes  in  the  possibility  of  knowing  a  priori 
the  sense  or  intellectual  content  of  reality  through  dialectical  de- 
velopment of  the  Begriff,  As  it  knows  only  one  reaUty,  so  it 
knows  only  one  truth  and  only  one  way  to  it :  thinking  experience. 
Thought  without  experience  leads  to  the  knowledge  of  reality  just 
as  little  as  experience  without  thought.  The  philosopher  has  no 
royal  road  to  knowledge ;  speculative  idealism  is  in  truth  nothing 
but  a  distorted  reflection  on  cognitions  which  are  due  to  uncon- 
fessed  experience."  * 

1  F.  Paulsen,  Einleitung  in  die  Philosophic,  1892,  p.  29 :  "  Es  ist  der 
gemelnsame  Gnindcharakter  der  Philosophien  Fichtes,  Schellings,  Kegels, 
dass  sie  durch  ein  neues  Verfahren  rein  begrifflichen  Denkens,  unabhangig 
von  der  Erfahrung  und  den  empirischen  Wissenschaften,  ein  System 
absoluter  Erkenntnis  der  Wirklichkeit  hervorzubringen  zu  konnen  iiber- 
zeugt  sind,"  u.  s.  f. 

2  Ibid.  p.  16:  "Unsere  Zeit  glaubt  nicht  mehr  an  die  Moglichkeit, 
durch  dialektische  Begriffsentwickelung  die  Gedanken  oder  den  Sinn  der 
Wirklichkeit  a  priori  zu  erkennen.  Sie  kennt,  wie  nur  eiue  Wirklichkeit, 
so  nur  eine  Wahrheit  und  einen  Weg  zu  ihr:  die  denkende  Erfahrung. 
Erfahrungsloses  Denken  fuhrt  so  wenig  zur  Erkenntnis  der  Wirklichkeit, 
als  gedankenlose   Erfahrung.     Der   Philosoph  hat  keine  via  regia  zur 


44 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PfflLOSOPHY 


The  persistent  attempt  of  speculative  idealism  to  elimi- 
minate  from  philosophy  all  recognition  "  of  the  given,"  as 
simple  "fact  of  existence"  or  "datum  of  experience,"  has 
been  an  historical  failure  because  it  was  a  logical  failure  from 
the  start.  For  the  "pure  reason,"  *<pure  thought,"  "pure 
consciousness,"  "pure  self-activity,"  "pure  productivity," 
"  pure  process,"  "  pure  law  of  the  process,"  or  whatever  else, 
must  exist y  and  he  known  to  exist,  simply  as  given  fact  or 
datum :  else  there  would  be  nothing  to  know,  or  to  think,  or 
to  philosophize  about,  and  idealism  itself  would  vanish  into 
non-existence.  Hence  idealism  struggles  in  vain  to  get  rid 
of  this  obstinate  surd  of  some  merely  "given  existence," 
some  undeduced  and  unconstructed  "  reality,"  be  it  that  of 
sensation,  perception,  intuition,  concept,  idea,  or  what  not,  as 
ultimate  fact  of  existence  unexplained  by  reason.  Its  high- 
est reach  goes  no  higher  than  its  artlessly  artificial  divorce 
of  reason  and  experience^  and  its  fluttering  attempt  to  soar 
with  only  one  wing.  It  is  owing  to  its  defeat  by  fact  and 
the  science  of  fact  that  philosophical  idealism  has  never 
succeeded  in  making  itself  the  philosophy  of  the  world,  but 
remains  still  the  "fad"  of  a  school.  The  future  belongs 
to  scientific  realism  alone,  grounded  as  it  is  upon  the  neces- 
sary identity  in  difference  of  experience  and  reason  in  all 
human  knowledge,  from  elemental  particular  cognition  up 
to  universal  philosophy. 

§  25.  Reviewing  now  the  regress  of  grounds  and  sur- 
veying it  as  a  whole  thus  far,  we  find  it  consisting  essen- 
tially of  three  moments  or  steps,  as  follows :  — 

I.   The  affirmation  that  "human  knowledge  exists"  is 

Erkenntuis ;  die  Spekulation  ist  in  Wahrheit  nichts  als  eine  verzerrte 
Reflexion  iiber  Erkenntnisse,  die  uneingestandener  Erfahrung  verdankt 
werden."  This  is  admirably  said,  but  it  must  be  admitted  that  Paulsen 
fails  to  orient  himself  in  accordance  with  it.  "  Erfahrungsloses  Denken  " 
is  the  principle  of  idealism  ;  " gedankenlose  Erfahrung"  is  the  principle 
of  materialism  ;  and  "denkende  Erfahrung,"  or  scientific  method,  is  the 
principle  of  scientific  renlvtm.  In  describing  his  own  position  therefore, 
as  "idealistic  monism,"  Paulsen  seems  to  sanction  a  principle  which  he 
means  to  reject  (Vorwort,  pp.  v,  viii-ix  ;  cf.  pp.  48-51,  351-353). 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


45 


self-grounded  upon  the  identity  in  difference  of  its  own 
experiential  content  and  its  own  rational  ground. 

II.  The  identity  of  experiential  content  and  rational 
ground  in  the  affirmation  itself  is  grounded  upon  the 
identity  in  difference  of  experience  and  reason  in  human 
knowledge. 

III.  The  identity  of  experience  and  reason  in  human 
knowledge  is  grounded  upon  the  identity  in  difference  of 
existence  and  knowledge  in  man  as  a  self-knowing  existence 
(fact  of  self-consciousness). 

Or,  proceeding  in  the  reverse  order  of  a  progress  from 
condition  to  consequence,  we  have:  — 

I.  Because  existence  and  knowledge  are  identical  in  man 
as  a  self-knowing  existence,  experience  and  reason  must  be 
identical  in  human  knowledge. 

II.  Because  experience  and  reason  are  identical  in 
human  knowledge,  the  experiential  content  and  the  rational 
ground  must  be  identical  in  the  affirmation  that  "human 
knowledge  exists." 

III.  Because  the  experiential  content  and  the  rational 
ground  are  identical  in  the  affirmation  that  "  human  knowl- 
edge exists,"  the  affirmation  itself  must  be  self-grounded 
and  self-demonstrated. 

Now  both  the  regress  to  conditions  and  the  progress  to 
consequences  reveal  equally  well  the  indestructible  strength 
of  the  chain  which  anchors  the  affirmation  that  "  human 
knowledge  exists  "  to  the  bed-rock  of  all  human  knowledge : 
namely,  the  self-knowing  existence  of  man  as  man.  But 
the  regress,  in  leading  from  the  affirmation  to  man  as  man, 
leads  directly  back  to  the  affirmer  himself ;  and  the  affirmer 
is  at  once  the  ground  and  the  cause  of  the  affirmation.  It 
leads  to  the  actual  existence  of  knowledge  in  man,  as  the 
ultimate  ground  of  the  content  of  the  affirmation  that  "hu- 
man knowledge  exists ; "  and  it  leads  to  the  actual  exist- 
ence of  self-knowing  energy  in  man,  as  the  efficient  cause 
or  conscious  agent  of  the  affirmation  as  an  act  of  knowledge. 
It  thus  leads  to  man  as  the  ground-cause  or  cause-ground  of 


46 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


the  affirmation  in  its  double  aspect  of  cognition  and  effect, 
and  brings  out  into  strong  light  two  of  the  fundamental 
elements  of  his  nature :  reason,  or  intelligence,  and  will,  or 
energy.  But  this  is  not  all.  The  affirmation  that  "  human 
knowledge  exists,"  manifesting  most  conspicuously  as  it 
does  the  cognitive  and  the  volitive  elements  of  man's  nature, 
manifests  also,  more  or  less,  the  invariable  stimulus  and  con- 
comitant of  these :  to  wit,  feeling,  or  the  sensitive  element. 
For  no  affirmation,  considered  as  an  act  of  will,  can  fail  to 
be  accompanied,  in  however  slight  a  degree,  by  tlie  presence 
of  feeling,  which  is  a  constant  ingredient  of  the  complex 
state  of  consciousness  involved  in  every  volition.  Hence 
the  regress  to  conditions,  necessitated  by  a  philosophical 
treatment  of  the  "  human  knowledge  exists,"  leads  logically 
to  recognition  in  man  of  all  the  root-characteristics  of 
human  consciousness:  knowledge  or  thought,  feeling,  and 
will.  Nor  is  even  this  all.  Every  affirmation,  though 
silently  made,  may  yet  be  spoken;  and  speech  is,  essen- 
tially, mechanico-organic  expression  of  the  psychical  to  the 
psychical  through  the  physical.  Hence  the  affirmation  that 
"  human  knowledge  exists,"  as  a  real  or  possible  utterance,  is 
not  completely  traced  back  to  its  ultimate  cause-ground,  if 
the  investigation  stops  short  of  man  as  real  person,  in  all 
the  vast  complexity  of  his  psycho-physical  personal  consti- 
tution. And  nothing  short  of  man  as  real  person  and  as 
society  of  real  persons  will  explain  the  mode  of  actuality 
of  human  knowledge,  —  that  is,  its  universal  historico- 
literary  form  of  seriated  affirmation. 

§  26.  The  result  of  the  regress  to  conditions,  namely, 
that  the  ultimate  rational  ground  of  the  affirmation  that 
"  human  knowledge  exists  "  is  the  fact  of  man  himself  as 
a  self-knowing  existence,  verifies  itself  by  answering  all 
the  as  yet  unanswered  questions  in  what  precedes. 

As  an  "  act  of  knowledge  "  (§  19),  the  affirmation  must 
have  (1)  its  rational  ground,  or  reason  why  it  is  known ; 

(2)  its  practical  ground,  or  reason  why  it  is  affirmed ;  and 

(3)  its  efficient  cause,  or  reason  why  it  becomes. 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


47 


(1)  The  immediate  reason  why  it  is  known  that  "  human 
knowledge  exists  "  is  the  fact  that  the  content  itself  affirms 
its  own  ground.  In  other  words,  knowledge  proves  itself 
by  asserting  itself  in  an  act  of  knowledge.  But  the  deeper 
and  ultimate  reason,  which  lies  immanent  or  implicit  in  the 
immediate  reason,  is  the  fact  that,  since  knowledge  and 
existence  are  identical  in  man,  it  is  utterly  immaterial 
whether  he  affirms  that  "  human  knowledge  exists  "  or  that 
"  human  existence  knows : "  either  of  these  perfectly  equiv- 
alent and  convertible  judgments,  either  of  which  posits  or 
affirms  the  identity  of  knowledge  and  existence  and  humanity, 
is  the  self-affirmation  and  self -demonstration  of  Man, 
because  simply  to  exist  as  man  is  necessarily  to  affirm  them 
both,  — because,  in  other  words,  man  is  both  the  knowledge 
of  his  own  existence  and  the  existence  of  his  own  knowl- 
edge. Hence  the  known  identity  of  content  and  ground  in 
the  "  human  knowledge  exists,"  if  fully  comprehended,  is  the 
necessary,  universal,  and  objectively  valid  self-affirmation 
of  human  knowledge  itself,  as  the  fact  of  human  self 
consciousness.  In  this  case,  the  affirmer  is  the  proof  of  his 
own  affirmation :  human  knowledge  can  exist  nowhere  but 
in  man,  and  existing  man  is  himself  the  existence  of  human 
knowledge.  This  is  the  answer  to  the  question  in  §  21,  how 
"existence,"  in  any  intelligible  sense,  can  be  affirmed  of 
human  knowledge. 

(2)  The  practical  reason  why  the  affirmation  is  made, 
as  a  written  or  spoken  one,  will  hardly  be  found  to  exist  ex- 
cept in  the  mind  of  the  philosopher  philosophizing ;  for  the 
ordinary  man  has  no  need  to  affirm  what  no  one  either 
denies  or  doubts.  But,  to  the  philosopher,  the  reason  of 
affirming  the  existence  of  human  knowledge  lies  very  close 
to  the  reason  of  knowing  it,  in  the  fact  that  he  knows  the 
existence  of  human  knowledge  to  be  the  essence  of  all 
human  self-consciousness,  together  with  the  further  fact 
that,  as  a  philosopher,  he  himself  exists  both  to  know  and 
to  tell  what  he  knows  because  he  knows  it.  If,  then,  his 
philosophy  goes  deep  enough  and  moves  surely  enough  to  in- 


48 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


49 


terpret  scientifically  the  philosophic  self-consciousness  of 
human  reason  as  the  Philosophy  of  Philosophy,  that  is,  as 
both  fact  of  history  and  highest  realization  of  the  philo- 
sophic aim,  he  will  necessarily  affirm  the  existence  of  human 
knowledge  as  his  only  possible  foundation  or  starting-point, 
and,  when  he  gets  through,  will  find  that  he  has  affirmed 
nothing  else  than  the  content  of  human  knowledge  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end.    To  him,  therefore,  the  reason  of  af- 
firming coincides  with  the  reason  of  knowing:  he  speaks 
because  he  knows,  and  because  it  is  his  necessary  office  to 
tell  what  he  knows.    Considering  the  affirmation,   how- 
ever, not  as  a  spoken  or  written  one,  but  rather  as  the  un- 
worded  self-demonstration  of    self-knowing   existence  in 
man  as   man,  the  necessary  reason   for  affirming  it  lies 
simply  in  the  fact  that  no  man  can  help  affirming  it:  his 
very  existence  as  a  man  is  its  necessary  self-affirmation  in 
consciousness.     If  man  exists  at  all,  he  must  affirm  that 
"  human  knowledge  exists,"  for  his  existence  is  unworded 
affirmation  of  it.     Hence  we  all  instantly  understand  each 
other's  unspoken  affirmation,  and  instinctively  expect  every 
man  to  manifest  the  knowledge  which  his  mere  presence  as 
a  man  affirms.     If  this  were  not  the  case,  we  should  never 
expect  any  one  to  know  anything  until  he   happened  to 
mention  the  fact !     On  the  contrary,  our  knowledge  that 
so-and-so  is  a  man  is  our  knowledge  that  he  knows.     These, 
then,  are  the  reasons  why  the  existence  of  human  knowledge 
is  necessarily  affirmed  (§  20). 

(3)  It  was  shown,  in  §§19  and  25,  that  the  affirmation 
that  "  human  knowledge  exists,"  considered  as  at  one  and 
the  same  time  both  a  cognition  and  an  effect,  must  have 
both  its  rational  ground  and  its  efficient  cause  in  one  and 
the  same  rational  affirmer  affirming  for  a  reason ;  that  is, 
in  man  himself  as  a  knowing  energy,  an  active  intelligence, 
a  cause-ground.  The  affirmation  is  both  cognition  and 
effect.  Man  affirms  it  because  he  knows  it ;  he  is  affirmer 
because  he  is  knower ;  he  is  cause  and  ground,  ground  and 
cause,  in  one.     Here,  then,  at  least  so  far  as  the  affirma- 


/<, 


!   J 


H 


l|i 


tion  that  ''human  knowledge  exists"  is  concerned,  man  is 
shown  to  be  not  only  a  self-knowing  existence,  but  also  the 
indissoluble  union  of  reason  and  energy,  the  identity  in 
difference  of  ground  and  cause.  And  the  affirmation, 
therefore,  has  its  efficient  cause  or  agent  in  man,  as  the 
identity  not  only  of  knowledge  and  existence,  but  also  of 
knowledge  and  will,  together  with  what  experience  shows 
to  be  their  concomitants,  feeling,  and  mechanico-organic 
constitution,  —  in  a  word,  in  man  as  person. 

§  27.  But  here  there  emerges  a  new  difficulty.  "  The 
last  step  of  your  regress  to  conditions,"  it  may  be  very 
plausibly  objected,  "  gives  us,  in  §  25,  man  as  a  self-knowing 
existence,  to  be  sure,  but  only  as  a  given  fact,  a  mere  datum 
of  experience,  a  mere  actuality  which  contains  in  itself  no 
rational  necessity,  no  necessary  reason  or  condition.  Yet 
now  you  give  us,  in  §  26,  man  as  in  himself  the  ultimate 
identity  of  ground  and  cause,  a  relatively  necessary  cause- 
ground.  How  can  he  be  at  the  same  time  a  mere  actuality 
and  a  rational  necessity?  How  are  these  contradictory 
results  of  your  argument  to  be  reconciled?" 

We  reply  that  the  contradiction  is  only  apparent,  and 
does  not  exist  at  all,  if  the  argument  is  fully  understood. 
It  is  perfectly  true  that  the  regress  of  §  25  stops  with  man 
as  a  mere  actuality  of  experience  or  a  merely  given  fact 
of  human  self-consciousness,  and  not  with  man  as  a  neces- 
sity of  reason,  as  a  self-grounded  existence,  or  as  his  own 
self-explanation.  If  we  stop  here,  man  does  not  explain 
himself ;  but  the  regress  to  conditions  is  not  yet  concluded, 
and  must  be  continued.  It  is  likewise  perfectly  true  that 
§  26  represents  man  as  the  ultimate  and  relatively  neces- 
sary cause-ground  of  his  own  spoken  or  written  affirmation 
that  "human  knowledge  exists;"  and  this  is  undeniable, 
if  the  conscious  agent  is  the  cause  of  his  own  conscious 
acts.  But  it  does  not  represent  man  as  the  ultimate  and 
necessary  cause-ground  of  the  affirmation,  so  far  as  it  is 
involved  in  the  mere  fact  of  his  existence  ;  the  cause-ground 
of  this  unworded  affirmation  must  be  the  cause-ground  of 


VOL.    I. 


50 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


man  himself  as  an  intelligible  word,  the  necessary  condition 
of  his  existence  as  an  actual  intelligible  word  of  affirming 
Nature.  These  two  results  are  not  contradictory  positions. 
Man  is  the  necessary  cause-ground  of  his  own  worded 
affirmation,  but  not  of  himself,  as  an  unworded  affirmation. 
That  remains  to  be  ascertained.  The  worded  affirmation, 
as  an  outwardly  effectuated  and  conscious  act  of  knowledge, 
cannot  be  traced  back  of  man  himself  as  its  ground-cause ; 
for  he  himself  is  the  whole  chain  of  his  own  acts  and  the 
whole  cause  of  that  chain.  But  man  himself  must  be 
traced  back  to  a  still  deeper  cause-ground,  immanent  in 
himself,  yet  more  widely  universal.  Otherwise,  philosophy 
will  not  begin  with  an  absolutely,  but  only  a  relatively, 
self-grounded  affirmation  in  the  "human  knowledge  ex- 
ists." The  question  must  now  be  answered,  "Why  does 
man  exist?" 

§  28.  It  was  proved  at  the  very  outset  of  this  long  in- 
vestigation that,  with  regard  to  this  extraordinary  judg- 
ment, no  ground  or  rational  condition  of  it  can  possibly 
be  found  in  a  prior  judgment.  The  entire  regression  of 
grounds  which  we  have  been  pursuing  from  §  20  has  been 
strictly  an  immanent  regression,  and  consists  solely  in  the 
deeper  and  deeper  understanding  of  the  judgment  itself. 
In  this  respect,  the  judgment,  from  its  very  nature,  stands 
absolutely  unique  and  alone;  for  in  no  other  judgment 
could  it  ever  be  found  that  the  actual  content  explicitly 
states  the  rational  ground,  also,  in  one  and  the  same  af- 
firmation. Consequently,  the  wider  and  more  universal 
the  ground  is  proved  to  be,  just  so  much  more  widely 
and  universally  must  the  content  itself  be  understood  and 
interpreted.  Strictly  speaking,  then,  there  has  been  no 
regress  at  all,  but  simple  expansion  of  a  meaning  at  first 
very  imperfectly  apprehended ;  it  is  a  regress  so  far  only 
as  this  very  expansion  consists  for  us  in  necessary  steps 
or  stages  which  can  be  apprehended  only  in  succession. 
It  is  worth  while,  perhaps,  to  call  attention  to  this  quite 
obvious  fact,  in  order  to  forestall  the  unintelligent  but  yet 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


51 


fill 


«  i 


\ 


^i 


possible  criticism  that,  after  professing  to  start  with  a 
self-grounded  affirmation,  we  immediately  proceeded  to 
investigate  its  grounds  elsewhere. 

§  29.  Now  the  great  difficulty  under  which  we  have  been 
laboring  from  the  start  lies  in  the  very  nature  of  rational- 
ity, in  the  very  law  of  rationality  itself.  In  any  series  of 
reasons  and  results,  of  conditions  and  consequences,  the 
law  of  the  rational  series  is  that  each  term  must  be  at  once 
both  condition  and  consequence,  both  reason  and  fact. 
That  is,  each  term  must  be  to  the  preceding  term  a  conse- 
quence or  fact,  and  to  the  following  term  a  condition  or 
reason.  The  difficulty,  then,  is  this:  how  can  there  be 
either  a  first  term  or  a  last  term  in  any  rational  series 
or  chain?  For  a  first  term  will  be  condition,  but  not 
consequence ;  a  last  term  will  be  consequence,  but  not  con- 
dition. Under  the  law  of  the  series,  therefore,  neither  a 
first  term  nor  a  last  term,  as  a  term,  is  possible;  the  ra- 
tional series  must  be  interminable.  How  is  it  possible, 
then,  for  philosophy  to  begin,  or  for  man  to  reason  at  all  ? 

Precisely  the  same  difficulty,  however,  emerges  in  con- 
sidering a  chain  of  physical  causes,  and  following  it  either 
forward  or  backward.  The  law  of  the  causal  series,  the 
law  of  causality  itself,  is  that  each  term  shall  be  at  once 
both  cause  and  effect.  That  is,  each  term  must  be  cause  to 
the  following  term  and  effect  to  the  preceding  term.  How, 
then,  can  there  be  either  a  first  term  or  a  last  term  in  any 
causal  series  or  chain  ?  For  a  first  term  will  be  cause,  but 
not  effect;  and  a  last  term  will  be  effect,  but  not  cause. 
Hence  neither  a  first  term  nor  a  last  term,  as  a  term,  is 
possible;  the  causal  series,  too,  must  be  interminable. 
How  is  it  possible,  then,  for  science  to  be  the  explanation 
of  anything  ? 

§  30.  The  law  of  causality  being  that  each  link  in  the 
causal  chain  shall  be  both  a  cause  and  an  effect,  cause  of 
the  succeeding  link  and  effect  of  the  preceding  link,  it  fol- 
lows that  no  link  can  be  either  a  cause  or  an  effect  of  itself. 
But  the  whole  causal  chain  itself,  which  exists  only  as  the 


52 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


totality  of  its  links,  and  without'which  no  one  of  its  links 
could  exist  at  all,  has  neither  cause  nor  effect  in  another 
causal  chain;   it  exists,  but  without  external  cause  and 
without  external  effect.     What,  then,  is  the  cause  of  the 
causal  chain  itself  ?     This  is  a  question  to  which  but  one 
answer  is  possible.    The  causal  chain  as  a  whole  exists  ab- 
solutely of  itself ;  it  is  what  no  one  of  its  links  is  or  can 
be,  both  cause  of  itself  and  effect  of  itself.     It  is  as  idle  to 
ask  for  a  cause  as  it  is  to  ask  for  an  effect  of  the  whole 
causal  chain  other  than  the  whole  causal  chain;   it  is  of 
necessity  a  self-cause  and  a  self-effect.     This   is  the  un- 
deniable truth  of  Spinoza's  famous  distinction  of  natura 
natnmns  and  natura  naturata.     Self-existing  energy,  man- 
ifesting itself  as  alternately  cause  and  effect  in  each  link, 
manifests  itself  as  simultaneously  cause  and  effect  in  the 
causal  chain  as  a  whole  ;  the  whole  as  a  whole  cannot  tran- 
scend itself,  and  must  be  what  no  jmrt  as  a  part  can  be,  — 
causa  sui  and  effectum  sui  in  the  nunc  stans  of  eternity. 
In  this  way  the  causal  regress  leads  necessarily  to  a  first 
cause,  not  at  all  as  a  first  link,  but  as  the  unity  and  uni- 
versality of  all  the  links  together  in  an  eternal  chain,  — 
one  nniuersal  energy  which  acts  in  each  link,  unites  all  the 
links,  and  constitutes  the  immanent  necessary  condition  of 
the  causal  chain  itself.    If  this  had  occurred  to  Kant,  we 
should  never  have  had  his  "antinomies."     It  is  this  uni- 
versal manifestation  of  energy  or  "  efficiency  "  in  the  causal 
chain  as  a  whole,  and  in  each  link  as  a  part,  which  distin- 
guishes the  causal  nexus  from  mere  "invariable  succes- 
sion," mere  "  antecedence  and  consequence,"  or  any  other 
mode  of  mere  time-sequence,  and  thereby  renders  possible 
the  relative  explanations  of  science.     For,  while  mere  time- 
sequence  without  efficiency  explains  nothing,  —  while  the 
separate  sciences  stop  arbitrarily  with  certain  earlier  links 
of  the  chain,  conventionally  adopted  as  definitions  or  first 
principles,  and  therefore  explain  only  in  part, —philoso- 
phy stops  only  with  the  whole,  and  thereby  alone  explains. 
"  Efficiency,"  however,  it  should  be  noted  in  passing,  is  the 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


53 


beginning,  not  the  end  of  the  explanation,  as  will  appear 
later.* 

§  31.  Recurring  now  to  the  rational  series,  the  law  of 
rationality  requires  that  each  term  of  the  series  shall  be 
both  a  condition  and  a  consequence,  condition  to  the  term 
which  succeeds  and  consequence  to  the  term  which  pre- 
cedes. Hence  it  follows  that  no  term  can  be  either  a  con- 
dition or  a  consequence  of  itself.  But  the  whole  rational 
series,  which  exists  only  as  the  totality  of  all  its  own  terms, 
and  without  which  no  term  could  exist  at  all,  has  neither 
condition  nor  consequence  in  another  rational  series ;  it  ex- 
ists, but  without  either  condition  or  consequence  external 
to  itself.  What,  then,  is  the  reason  of  the  rational  series 
itself  ?  Such  a  question  is  absurd.  To  ask  the  reason  why 
reason  exists  is  pure  unreason.  Reason,  as  the  rational 
series  of  the  world,  exists  because  it  exists ;  no  other  reason 
can  be  rendered,  and  that  is  no  reason  at  all.  In  other 
words,  the  rational  series  exists  absolutely  of  itself ;  it  is 
what  no  one  of  its  terms  can  be,  —  both  reason  and  result  of 
itself;  it  is  eternal  reason  because  it  is  eternal  fact,  and 
eternal  fact,  because  it  is  eternal  reason ;  it  is  self-condition 
and  self-consequence  in  one.  Self-existing  reason,  mani- 
festing itself  as  alternately  condition  and  consequence  in 
each  term,  manifests  itself  as  simultaneously  condition  and 
consequence  in  the  rational  series  as  a  whole;  it  is  ratio 
sui  and  consequentia  sui,  as  the  eternal  fact  of  universal 

^  "Schon  Plato  hatte  die  atria  von  den  cvvalrLa^  die  bewirkenden 
Ursachen  (5t'  Sjv  yiyveral  ri)  von  den  unerlasslichen  Bedingungen  (dvev  ujv 
ov  ylyverai)  scharf  unterschiedeu.  Aristoteles  folgt  ihm  in  dieser  Unter- 
scheidung."  (E.  Zeller,  Die  Philosophie  dor  Griechen,  3te  Auflage,  II.  ii. 
331,  footnote.)  The  antithesis  of  "  causes  and  concauses"  is  not  a  happy 
expi-ession  for  that  of  "causes  and  conditions  ;"  it  obscures  the  real  dis- 
tinction. All  causes  are  conditions,  but  not  all  conditions  are  causes. 
That  is,  all  causes  are  energies,  and  determine  effects ;  all  conditions  are 
reasons,  and  determine  conclusions.  The  rational  series  of  the  world's 
development  (ratio  sui)  includes  and  transcends  the  causal  series  {causa 
sui),  for  it  comprehends  not  only  all  that  happens,  but  also  all  that  might 
hapiMin,  —  not  only  the  actual,  but  also  the  possible.  Energy  acta,  but 
immanent  licasou  directs  its  action. 


/ 


54 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


reason.  For,  although  not  every  reason  is  a  cause,  every 
cause  is  necessarily  a  reason,  —princlpium  ratio7iis  suffici- 
eiitis  fieridi,  the  reason  of  becoming;  and  therefore  the 
causal  chain  itself  is  necessarily  a  rational  series,  also.  In 
this  way,  the  rational  regress  leads  necessarily  to  a  first 
reason,  not  at  aU  as  a  first  term  in  the  series,  but  as  the 
unity  and  universality  of  all  the  terms  together  in  an  eter- 
nal series,  —  one  universal  reason  which  abides  in  each  term, 
unites  all  the  terms,  and  constitutes  the  immanent  neces- 
sary condition  of  the  rational  series  itself,  —  the  eternal 
ratio  sill  of  the  universe,  the  ground  of  all  grounds,  the  un- 
conditioned reason  and  self-explanation  of  the  world. 

§  32.  These  preliminary  results  established,  we  can  now 
resume  the  rigorous  regress  of  grounds  where  we  left  it  in 
§  25  and  §  26.  The  last  step  reached  in  the  regress  was 
the  identity  of  existence  and  knowledge  in  man  as  a  self- 
knowing  existence,  and  the  identity  of  ground  and  cause  in 
man  as  a  cause-ground ;  that  is,  the  identity  of  existence, 
reason,  and  energy,  all  in  one,  in  man  as  real  person! 
This,  so  far  as  the  regress  has  yet  proceeded,  is  the  ulti- 
mate  and  immanent  ground  of  the  affirmation  that  "  human 
knowledge  exists,"  and  nowise  transcends  the  immanent 
meaning  of  the  identity  of  content  and  ground  in  the  affir- 
mation itself,  as  the  starting-point  of  the  regress.  Hence 
the  regress  itself  has  thus  far  been,  from  beginning  to  end, 
an  immanent  process  of  reason. 

Kow  the  underlying  principle  of  this  regress,  the  imma- 
nent law  of  this  immanent  process  of  reason,  has  been 
throughout  that  the  individual  cannot  explain  the  universal, 
but  that  the  universal  must  and  does  explain  the  individual. 
This  is  the  purport  of  Aristotle's  saying  that  the  whole  is 
prior  to  the  parts;  and  it  is  the  central  or  fundamental 
principle  of  the  theory  of  universals,  to  be  further  elucidated 
hereafter.* 

1  "Icb  wiirde  daher  Erkenntniss  aus  Principien  diejenige  nennen,  da 

ichdasBesondereimAllgemeinendurchBegriffeeikenne."  (Kant  Kritik 
der  reinen  Vemunft,  Werke,  III.  248.)  ' 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


55 


§  33.   Observe  how  this  principle  has  been  applied  in  the 
regress  hitherto. 

I.  The  affirmation  that  "human  knowledge  exists," 
though  of  course  a  universal  judgment  in  one  sense,  is  yet 
an  individual  or  particular  judgment  in  another  sense. 
That  is,  while  its  peculiar  meaning  is  universal,  it  is  yet, 
as  a  judgment,  a  particular  judgment  differentiated  from 
all  other  judgments  by  this  peculiar  meaning  as  its  particu- 
lar content ;  and  the  identity  of  its  content  and  ground  is, 
in  that  sense,  simply  the  identity  of  a  particular  experien- 
tial content  and  a  particular  rational  ground  in  a  particular 
judgment.  Now  this  experiential  content,  as  an  individual 
content,  is  explained  by  experience  in  general,  as  its  uni- 
versal ;  and  the  rational  ground,  as  an  individual  ground,  is 
explained  by  reason  in  general,  as  its  universal.  Hence 
the  particular  identity  of  experiential  content  and  rational 
ground  in  this  particular  judgment,  as  an  individual  iden- 
tity, is  explained  by  the  general  identity  of  experience  and 
reason  in  the  totality  of  all  judgments  or  human  knowledge, 
as  its  universal.  Thus,  according  to  the  law  of  the  process, 
the  explanation  is  complete. 

II.  Further,  experience,  as  a  particular  or  individual 
mode  of  actuality,  is  explained  by  actuality  in  general,  or 
existence  itself,  as  its  universal ;  and  reason,  as  a  particular 
or  individual  mode  of  cognition,  is  explained  by  cognition 
in  general,  or  knowledge  itself,  as  its  universal.  Hence 
the  particular  identity  of  experience  and  reason  in  human 
knowledge,  as  an  individual  identity,  is  explained  by  the 
general  identity  of  existence  and  knowledge  in  man,  as  its 
universal.  Thus,  again,  according  to  the  law  of  the  process, 
the  explanation  is  complete. 

III.  Thus  far,  there  has  been  a  pure  regress  of  grounds 
or  conditions  in  the  rational  series  alone,  arriving  at  the 
fact  of  individual  self-consciousness  in  man  as  real  person. 
But  here,  in  man  as  real  person  or  rational  affirmer,  the 
actualized  affirmation  that  "human  knowledge  exists" 
makes  the  rational  series  effect  a  junction,  so  to  speak,  with 


56 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


the  causal  series.     As  an  "act  of  knowled(/e"  or  "uttered 
cognition"  the  affirmation  leads   through   the   regress  of 
grounds  to  the  simple  fact  of  self-knowing  existence  or  in- 
dividual self-consciousness  in   man.     But,   as   an   "act  of 
knowledge"  or  ''uttered  cognition,"  and  therefore  as  also 
an  effect,  the  same  affirmation  leads  through  the  regress  to 
the  simple  fact  of  individual  activity,  energy,  or  cause  in 
man.     That  is,  individual  reason  is  the  rational  ground  of 
the  affirmation  merely  as  cognition,  while  individual  energy 
is  the  efficient  cause  of  the  affirmation  as  utterance  or  effect. 
Hence,  as   ''uttered  cognition,"  in  both   its  aspects,  the 
affirmation  leads  necessarily  to  the  particular  or  individual 
identity  of  ground  and  cause  in  man,  as  a  particular  or  indi- 
vidual cause-ground,  or  rational  affirmer ;  individual  rational 
self-consciousness,   the  outcome    thus    far    of   the    pure 
rational  regress,  is  now  found  united  with  individual  caus- 
ality, the  outcome  of  the  pure  causal  regress ;  and  the  union 
of  the  two  results  in  the  identity  of  ground  and  cause  in  an 
individual  —  the  identity  of  reason  and  energy  in  man  as 
real  person.     That  is,  the  affirmation  that  "  human  knowl- 
edge exists "  contains,  as  its  own  deeper  significance,  the 
fundamental  self-affirmation  and  self-demonstration  of  man 
as  its  own  necessary  cause-ground :  individual  cause  of  it 
as  an  utterance,  individual  ground  of  it  as  a  cognition,  and 
individual  cause-ground  of  it  as  an  indivisible  act  of  human 
knowledge  itself. 

§  34.  In  this  manner  the  regress  of  grounds  comes  to 
exhibit  a  double  aspect,  rational  and  causal,  without  ceas- 
ing to  be  an  indivisible  fact  in  the  unity  of  man  as  real 
person.  It  gives  man,  not  only  as  knower,  but  also  as 
affirmer,  —  knower  of  the  cognition  and  affirmer  of  the 
affirmation,  —  knower  so  far  as  he  is  ground,  and  affirmer  so 
far  as  he  is  cause,  of  the  necessary  affirmation  that  "  human 
knowledge  exists."  But,  although  these  two  elements  of 
ground  and  cause  are  thus  at  once  distinguished  and  united 
in  man  as  individual  human  existence,  —  although  man 
thus  exists  as  an  individual  ground  and  an  individual  cause 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


57 


in  an  individual  cause-ground  or  real  human  person,  —  this 
necessary  double  aspect  of  the  regress  proves  to  be  the 
salvation  of  philosophy. 

For,  considered  exclusively  as  an  individual  living  unit, 
or  animal,  man  can  be  explained  only  by  animal  in  general, 
as  his  universal ;  animal,  as  an  individual  organic  unit,  or 
organism,  can  be  explained  only  by  organism  in  general,  as 
its  universal ;  organism,  as  an  individual  mechanical  unit, 
or  machine,  can  be  explained  only  by  machine  in  general, 
as  its  universal ;  and  machine  in  general  is  taken  by  this 
mode  of  thinking  to  be  its  own  universal,  as  the  mechani- 
cal universe  itself,  the  absolute  ultimate  beyond  which 
nothing  either  appears  or  exists.  The  philosophy  which 
thus  culminates  in  universal  and  unconditional  mechanism, 
as  the  last  explanation  of  the  universe  itself,  begins  with  a 
consideration  of  man  which  at  least  omits  and  ignores,  if  it 
does  not  explicitly  deny,  his  double  character  as  a  cause- 
ground  ;  and  the  same  want  of  rational  insight  which  thus 
prevails  at  the  start  will  not  unnaturally  still  dominate  at 
the  end.  Such  a  philosophy  as  this,  however,  is  the  ex- 
tinction of  reason  itself;  for,  suppressing  absolutely  the 
rational  series,  it  insists  on  explaining  the  universe  by  the 
causal  series  alone. 

From  such  an  extinction  as  this,  notwithstanding,  phi- 
losophy is  saved  by  the  regress  of  grounds,  which  urges  it 
irresistibly  and  necessarily  onward  to  the  iinal  development 
and  fulfilment  of  its  own  rational  implications. 

§  35.  The  law  of  the  process  hitherto  undeviatingly  pur- 
sued is  that  the  individual  cannot  explain  the  universal, 
but  can  and  must  be  explained  by  the  universal.  That  is, 
no  individual  as  such  can  explain  itself  or  furnish  a  rational 
foundation  for  philosophy ;  the  only  possible  explanation  of 
the  individual,  the  only  possible  foundation  of  a  rational 
philosophy,  is  the  universal  alone. 

If,  then,  the  regress  of  grounds  ends  abruptly  in  man  as 
an  individual  (and  it  has  thus  far  proceeded  no  further),  it 
ends  with  a  mere  unexplained  fact.    It  ends,  to  be  sure, 


58 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


with  a  necessary  condition  relatively  to  the  consequence 
which  it  supports  or  grounds,  but  not  with  a  condition 
rationally  grounded  either  in  another  or  in  itself  —  not  with 
a  condition  which  is  itself  either  unconditioned  or  self-con- 
ditioned—  not  with  a  condition  which,  as  the  ground  of  all 
grounds,  is  itself  self-grounded.  Yet  the  affirmation  that 
"  human  knowledge  exists  "  cannot  be  self-grounded  in  the 
absolute  sense,  unless  its  own  ultimate  or  deepest  ground 
is  itself  self-grounded.  If  philosophy,  therefore,  beginning 
with  this  affirmation,  should  be  content  to  end  here  and 
push  the  regress  of  its  grounds  no  further,  it  would  not, 
after  all,  begin  with  an  absolutely  self-grounded  beginning, 
but  with  one  which  is  self -grounded  only  in  a  relative  sense. 
The  affirmation,  in  other  words,  is  now  left  resting  on  a 
mere  brute  fact  of  existence,  not  a  necessary  rational 
principle,  and  is  so  far  irrational. 

Undeniably,  then,  philosophy  must  persevere  in  the 
search  for  an  ultimate  rational  necessity,  immanent  in  the 
mere  existence  of  man  and  thereby  giving  it  rationality. 
But  how  shall  this  rationality  be  found  ?  Man,  purely  as 
an  individual,  purely  as  a  unit  of  existence,  purely  as  an 
identity  without  difference,  explains  nothing  else,  and  can- 
not even  explain  himself;  his  explanation,  if  it  can  be 
explained,  can  be  found  in  the  universal  alone. 

§  36.  Manifestly,  no  explanation  of  man  could  be  found 
through  the  regress  of  grounds,  if  it  had  ended  thus  far 
in  man  as  a  pure  unit  of  existence,  a  pure  individual,  a 
pure  identity  without  difference.  But  it  has  thus  far  ended 
with  man  as  a  cause-ground,  an  identity  in  difference,  an 
individual  cause  and  individual  ground  in  individual  person, 
—  as  the  identity  of  cause  and  ground,  or  energy  and 
reason,  in  himself.  In  this  lies  the  possibility  of  a  further 
prosecution  of  the  regress,  obeying  still  the  immanent  law 
of  its  immanent  process,  and  relying  solely  on  the  imma- 
nent completion  of  the  regress  itself,  in  order  to  reach  a 
universal  conclusion  and  a  rational  foundation  for  the 
initial  affirmation  of  philosophy.  The  fourth  step  of  the 
regress  will  then  be  as  follows :  — 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


59 


rV.  Man,  as  a  particular  or  individual  efficient  cause,  is 
explained  by  cause  in  general,  or  the  causal  series,  as  its 
universal ;  and  man,  as  a  particular  or  individual  rational 
ground,  is  explained  by  reason  in  general,  or  the  rational 
series,  as  its  universal.  Hence  the  particular  identity  of 
cause  and  ground  or  energy  and  reason  in  man,  as  an  in- 
dividual identity,  is  explained  by  the  general  identity  of 
causal  series  and  the  rational  series  themselves,  that  is, 
the  identity  of  cause  and  ground  or  energy  and  reason  in 
the  universe,  as  its  universal.  Thus,  according  to  the  law 
of  the  process,  the  explanation  is  complete,  and  the  regress 
itself  is  absolutely  completed.  For  it  ends  in  the  absolute 
universality  of  the  universe  itself  —  in  the  absolute  identity 
in  difference  of  Energy  and  Reason  in  the  World,  Being 
and  Thought  in  Nature,  caiisa  sui  and  ratio  sul  in  God. 

§  37.  This,  then,  is  the  final  result  of  the  regress  of 
grounds.  We  are  now  in  a  condition  to  recapitulate  our 
long  argument  as  a  whole,  bring  together  its  main  points, 
and  present  tliem  in  a  single  synoptical  statement. 

I.  Philosophy,  in  its  necessary  historico-literary  form 
of  seriated  affirmation,  can  effect  a  real  beginning  in  a 
self-grounded  affirmation  alone,  since  no  other  can  be  both 
absolutely  necessary  or  certain  and  rationally  first.  That 
is,  the  first  principle  of  philosophy  must  be  a  necessary, 
universal,  and  objectively  valid  truth,  depending  on  no 
other  truth,  whether  expressed  or  presupposed.  If  its 
professedly  first  judgment  is  grounded  in  another  prior 
judgment,  that  prior  judgment  itself  is  an  earlier,  hence 
the  only  real,  beginning;  but,  if  that  prior  judgment  itself 
is  not  self -grounded,  its  ground  must  be  sought  in  still 
another  prior  judgment,  an  endless  regress  ensues  which 
does  not  abolish  itself,  and  a  philosophical  beginning 
for  philosophy  becomes  impossible  in  history  and  in 
literature.  Thus  the  demand  for  a  "  presuppositionless 
beginning"  is  justifiable  and  unanswerable;  but  the 
only  "presuppositionless  beginning"  is  a  self-grounded 
affirmation. 


60 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PniLOSOPHY 


II.  There  is  but  one  possible  self-grounded  affirmation : 
namely,  that  which  takes  the  one  universal  ground  of  all 
philosophical  or  rational  affirmation  as  its  own  particular 
content,  and  thereby  realizes  self-groundednees  through 
identity  of  content  and  ground.  '  The  historico-literary 
form  of  such  a  judgment  must  be  essentially  this ;  "  Human 
knowledge  exists." 

III.  The  affirmation  that  "human  knowledge  exists," 
as  content  alone,  is  empirical;  as  ground  alone,  it  is 
rational ;  as  content  and  ground  in  one,  it  is  both  empirical 
and  rational.  Hence,  in  its  integrity,  it  is  (1)  empirically 
known,  yet  rationally  or  necessarily  affirmed  ;  (2)  individ- 
ually known,  yet  rationally  or  universally  affirmed;  (3) 
subjective  in  content,  objective  in  ground,  and  both  sub- 
jective and  objective  ^er  se.  Further,  it  is  (1)  indubitable, 
(2)  undeniable,  (3)  undemonstrable  from  other  grounds 
than  itself,  but  (4)  self-demonstrated. 

IV.  The  complete  rationalization  of  this  first  principle 
and  first  affirmation,  however,  can  be  effected,  —  that  is, 

its  self-groundedness  can  be  completely  understood, only 

through  an  exhaustive  regress  of  its  immanent  rational 
conditions  or  grounds.  The  rational  necessity,  universality 
and  objective  validity  of  the  affirmation  that  "human 
knowledge  exists,"  as  at  once  a  cognition,  an  act,  and  an 
effect,  must  be  discovered,  not  abstractly  or  a  priori,  but 
rationally  and  immanently  in  its  a  posteriori  mode  of 
actuality  or  historico-literary  form. 

V.  To  be  exhaustive,  this  regress  of  grounds  must  be 
twofold:  (1)  regress  of  grounds  of  the  particular  content 
alone,  as  simple  identity  without  difference,  and  (2)  regress 
of  grounds  of  the  identity  of  the  particular  content  and  its 
universal  ground,  as  identity  in  difference.  The  first 
regress  proves  the  affirmation,  as  content,  to  be  absolutely 
grounded  in  itself,  as  ground.  The  second  regress  proves 
the  affirmation,  as  identity  of  content  and  ground,  to  be 
self-grounded  in  deeper  identities  immanent  in  itself,  yet 
more  widely  universal. 


THE  AXIOM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


61 


VI.  The  regress  of  grounds  of  the  content  alone,  as  iden- 
tity without  difference,  abolishes  itself. 

VII.  The  regress  of  grounds  of  the  identity  of  the  par- 
ticular content  and  its  universal  ground,  as  identity  in  dif- 
ference, develops  itself  as  a  regress  of  concentric  necessary 
principles  of  increasing  universality;   each  principle  dis- 
covered as  a  ground  is  found  to  be  itself  the  consequence  of 
a  deeper  ground,  until  the  ground  of  all  grounds  is  reached 
in  the  ratio  sui,  or  absolute  rational  series  of  the  world. 
Each  principle,  therefore,  is  a  universal  ground  to  its  own 
consequence,  but  a  particular  case  to  its  own  ground ;  and 
thus  each  step  in  the  regress  is  movement  towards  a  wider 
universality  until  absolute  universality  is  attained  in  the 
universe  as  a  whole.     The  steps  of  the  regress  are  these : 
(1)  Identity  of  experiential  content  and  rational  ground  in 
the  affirmation  that  "  human  knowledge  exists ;  "  (2)  Iden- 
tity of  experience  and  reason  in  all  human  knowledge; 
(3)  Identity  of  existence  and  knowledge  in  all  human  self- 
consciousness ;   (4)  Conditioned  identity  of  self-conscious- 
ness and  efficiency  or  of  reason  and  energy  in  Man,  as 
individual   personality    in   history  and   individual   cause- 
ground  of  the  affirmation  in  literature ;  (5)  Unconditioned 
identity  of  self-consciousness  and  efficiency,  reason,   and 
energy,  rational  series  and  causal  series,  or  ratio  sui  and 
causa  sui,  in  the  universe  itself,  as  universal  personality 
in  Nature  and  universal  cause-ground  of  Man ;    (G)  Abso- 
lute identity  of  Being  and  Thought,  not  without  difference 
but  in  difference. 

VIII.  Since  the  content  of  the  affirmation,  being  iden- 
tical with  the  ground,  includes  all  that  the  ground  includes, 
the  meaning  of  the  affirmation  must  expand  in  proportion 
as  the  meaning  of  the  ground  is  itself  expanded.  Hence, 
the  regress  of  grounds  is  merely  a  progress  in  comprehen- 
sion of  the  original  affirmation.  Its  progressive  meanings 
may  be  thus  paraphrased :  (1)  Human  knowledge  is  affirmed 
to  exist  simply  because  it  is  known  to  exist ;  (2)  The  ac- 
tual existence  of  human  knowledge  means  the  inseparable 


62 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


union  of  experience  and  reason  in  every  act  of  knowledge ; 
(3)  The  inseparable  union  of  experience  and  reason  in  every 
act  of  knowledge  means  the  inseparable  union  of  existence 
and  knowledge  in  all  human  self-consciousness ;  (4)  The 
inseparable  union  of  existence  and  knowledge  in  all  human 
self-consciousness  means  the  inseparable  union  of  causality 
and  rationality  in  Man  as  a  conditioned  individual  being ; 
(5)  The  inseparable  union  of  causality  and  rationality  in 
Man,  as  a  conditioned  individual  being,  means  the  insepar- 
able union  of  causality  and  rationality  in  Nature,  as  uncon- 
ditioned universal  Being  —  the  differenced  identity  of  Being 
and  Thought. 

Only  by  virtue  of  this  ultimate  expansion  in  the  compre- 
hension of  its  meaning  can  the  affirmation  that  "human 
knowledge  exists  "  become  an  absolutely  first  principle  and 
first  affirmation  in  philosophy.  For  otherwise  it  would  ap- 
pear in  the  rational  series  of  philosophy  merely  as  a  first 
term,  and  not  as  that  totality  of  all  the  terms  which  is  itself 
the  only  possible  first  reason  or  ratio  sul  (see  §§  29  and  1)1). 
That  is,  it  would  not  be  an  absolutely  self-grounded  affirma- 
tion, unless  its  explicitly  self-affirmed  ground  were  known 
to  be  an  implicit  affirmation  of  the  one  absolute  and  all- 
inclusive  ground  of  all  grounds.  Herein  lies  the  impossibil- 
ity of  effecting  a  real  beginning  of  philosophy  by  essaying 
to  start  from  the  fact  of  human  self-consciousness  (whether 
taken  individually  or  universally),  as  an  ultimate  but  un- 
explained datum  or  postulate  or  assumption.  That  is, 
philosophy  can  attain  neither  necessity,  universality,  nor 
objective  validity,  unless  it  consciously  grounds  itself  on 
the  identity  of  causa  sui  and  ratio  sui  in  the  self-existent 
Reason-Energy  of  the  World,  and  unless  it  can  explain  this 
consciousness  in  the  only  rational  way  through  the  re<vress 
of  grounds.  '^ 

IX.  Consequently,  the  affirmation  that  "  human  knowl- 
edge exists,"  comprehended  in  its  full  significance  as  the 
regress  of  grounds,  is  the  necessary  and  absolute  starting- 
point  of  philosophy.     This  regress  of  grounds  is  apodoictic, 


THE  AXIOM  OP  PHILOSOPHY 


63 


and  needs  only  to  be  understood.  The  unconditioned 
rational-causal  series  of  the  universe  is  the  absolute  condi- 
tion of  philosophy  itself  and  the  sole  aim  of  philosophy  is  to 
explicate  it  in  human  thought.  Speculative  idealism  denies 
the  regress  of  grounds  at  the  start,  by  denying  the  identity 
of  experience  and  reason  in  all  human  knowledge,  and  by 
ostensibly  isolating  reason  as  the  dialectical  development  of 
the  Begriff'm  "pure  thought,"  yet  surreptitiously  intro- 
ducing experience  in  every  step  of  the  process.  But  scien- 
tific realism  affirms  the  regress  of  grounds  in  the  affirmation 
that  "human  knowledge  exists."  For  this  is  both  self- 
affirmation  and  self-demonstration  of  (1)  human  knowledge 
as  a  reality,  (2)  human  knowledge  as  real  identity  of  ex- 
perience and  reason,  (3)  human  self-consciousness  as  real 
identity  of  existence  and  knowledge,  (4)  Man  as  real  but 
conditioned  identity  of  energy  and  reason  in  himself,  and 
(5)  Nature  as  real  and  unconditioned  identity  of  energy  and 
reason  in  God.  Hence  the  affirmation  that  "human  knowl- 
edge exists,"  being  self-evident  to  every  affirmer  because  it 
is  internally  or  objectively  self-demonstrated,  is  the  funda- 
mental principle,  at  once  absolutely  certain  and  rationally 
first,  with  which  philosophy  must  begin  and  of  which  phi- 
losophy itself  is  simply  the  necessary  explication.  In  the 
Aristotelian  sense  of  "  the  affirmation  of  an  immediate  syl- 
logistic principle  which  he  must  make  who  intends  to  loarn 
anything  at  all,"  ^  it  may  well  be  termed  the  absolute  major 
premise  or  the  one  and  only  Axiom  of  Philosophy. 

^  Aristotle,  Analytica  Posteriora,  I.  2,  ed.  Bekker,  1.72,  al6 :   '' ^v 
[6.fU<rov  dpxvs  avWoyiffTiKijs  Oiaiv]  5'  dvdyKr}  (x^w  rbv  briovv  /jLadrjaSfievov, 


CHAPTER  II 


"COGITO,  ERGO  SUM 


>f 


§  40.  Modern  philosophy  was  born  into  distinct  self- 
consciousness  in  Bacon  and  Descartes  :  Bacon,  the  founder 
of  empiricism  or  empirism,  and  Descartes,  the  founder  of 
rationalism.  In  this  fundamental  opposition  between  ex- 
perience and  reason,  sense  and  intellect,  sensation  and 
thought,  as  in  the  last  analysis  two  necessarily  separate  or 
reciprocally  exclusive  origins  of  all  human  knowledge, 
modern  philosophy  not  only  had  its  conscious  beginning, 
but  has  ever  since  lived  its  conscious  life.  As  opposed 
principles  (disregarding  all  illogical  compromises  of  the 
two,  which  are  valueless  in  philosophy),  empirism  holds 
that  all  human  knowledge  is  at  bottom  self-transformed 
sensation— i^nre  sense-activity,  gradually  transforming  itself 
into  thought  without  drawing  on  any  other  original  element 
or  energy  than  itself;  while  rationalism  holds  that  all 
human  knowledge  at  bottom  is  thought  transforming  se7isa- 
tion—puve  intellect-activity, gradually  constructing  knowl- 
edge out  of  a  sense-activity  that  is  itself  neither  knowledge 
nor  an  origin  of  knowledge.  But,  inasmuch  as  both  sense 
and  intellect  are  merely  different  modes  of  activity  of  an 
energizing  subject,  both  empirism  and  rationalism  agree 
in  holding  that  all  human  knowledge  originates  solely  in  the 
knowing  subject,  and  that  nothing  in  knowledge  is  either 
derived  or  derivable  from  the  object  known,  at  least  as  an 
actually  given  reality  whose  existence  and  nature  are  inde- 
pendent of  all  humanly  subjective  activities  or  conditions. 
In  other  words,  both  sense  and  intellect  are  simply  modes 
of  consciousness,  sense  giving  all  the  "  matter  '^  and  intel- 
lect giving  all  the  "  form "  of  human  knowledge ;  and  all 


u 


COGITO,  ERGO  SUM" 


65 


so-called  knowledge  of  a  phenomenally  external  world  is 
reduced  to  mere  inference  —  which  is  nothing  but  an  act  of 
consciousness.     This,  mutatis  mutandis,  is  as  true  of  Bacon 
as  of  Descartes,  of  Locke's  "  observation  and  reflection  "  or 
Hume's  "  impressions  and  ideas"  as  of  Kant's  "sensibility 
and  understanding."     In  this   manner,  empirism,  or  the 
Apriorismus  of  sense,  and  rationalism,  or  the  Apriorismus 
of  intellect,  equally  resolve  all  human  knowledge  into  states 
of  human  consciousness,  and  find  its  ultimate  origin  and 
explanation  in  the  subject  alone.     For  this  reason,  the  two 
great  parallel  streams  of  "  modern  philosophy  "  flow  from 
one  and  the  same  source  in  their  common  recognition  of 
the  fact  of  individual  self -consciousness  as  the  sole  and  un- 
supplemented  origin  of  all  human  knowledge.    When,  there- 
fore, Descartes  laid  down  his  "  I  think,  therefore  I  am,"  as 
the  first  absolute  certainty  from  which  all  philosophies  of 
self-consciousness  must  take  their  start,  and  made  it  the 
fountain-head  of  his  own  rationalism,  he  spoke  no  more 
for  rationalism  than  he  did  for  empirism;  he  spoke  simply 
as  the  founder  of  systematic  modern  philosophy  itself,  in 
clear  contradistinction  from  ancient  philosophy;  he  fi'rst 
unequivocally  planted  himself  on  the  modern  affirmation, 
not  of  Universal  Being,  but  of  the  Being  of  Indivdual  Hu- 
man Thought,  and  thereby  made  himself,  not  Kant  (who 
erroneously  claimed  the   honor),  the   Copernicus   of    the 
modern  philosophical  revolution.     To  Descartes,  the  being 
of  an  external  world,  nay,  the  being  of  God  himself,  was 
simply  an  inference  from  his  own  individual  being,  simply  a 
consequence  from  his  own  individual  thought ;  each  infer- 
ence, therefore,  admitted  of  rational  doubt  at  the  start,  and 
was  held   by  him   to  be   provisionally  false. ^    But  as   is 
proved  in  Chapter  I,  the  being  of  God  is  the  ultimate  neces- 

*"  Sic  autem  rejicientes  ilia  omnia,  de  quibus  aliquo  modo  possumus 
dubitare,  ac  etiam  falsa  esse  fingentes  ;  facile  quidem  supponimus  nullum 
esse  Deum,  nullum  coelum,  nulla  corpora  ;  nosque  etiam  ipsos  non  habere 
manus,  nee  pedes,  nee  denique  ullum  corpus  ;  non  autem  ideo  nos  qui  talia 
cogitamus  nihil  esse."    (Principia  PhilosoMln.  p,  I.  7.) 

VOL.   I.  —  5 


66 


THE   SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


sary  condition  of  the  ahsolutely  certain  fact  of  Human 
Knowledge.  Of  this  principle,  if  the  immanent  regress 
of  conditions  is  once  clearly  understood,  there  can  be  no 
rational  doubt  at  all ;  and  this  principle  is  the  standpoint 
of  reformed  modern  philosophy,  the  philosophy  of  the 
future.  But  it  is  with  good  reason  that  all  reputable  his- 
torians and  competent  critics  agree  in  acknowledging  that 
Descartes's  pithy  formula, "  I  think,  therefore  I  am,"  is  the 
earliest  adequate  and  accurate  declaration  of  the  funda- 
mental principle,  the  distinctive  standpoint,  and  the  histori- 
cal beginning  of  modern  philosophy,  so  called. 

§  41.  Now  it  has  been  made  sufficiently  plain,  in  §§  3-7, 
that  no  real  starting-point  in  philosophy  can  possibly  be 
found  except  in  a  self-grounded  judgment,  proposition,  or 
affirmation,  and  that  self-groundedness  consists  in  the  ac- 
tual identity  in  difference  of  ground  and  content.  If  any 
professed  beginning  in  philosophy  depends  upon  some 
other  and  prior  judgment  or  presupposition,  it  is  no  real 
or  absolute  or  "  presuppositionless  beginning ; "  the  real 
beginning  lies  in  that  presupposition.  The  only  way  to" 
avoid  an  interminable  regress  of  relative  beginnings  is  to 
find  a  judgment  which  affirms  its  own  ground  as  its  own  con- 
tent, and  thereby  affirms  both  in  itself.  Here,  then,  such  a 
self-grounded  judgment  having  been  actually  ascertained,  we 
possess  a  critical  principle  by  which  we  can  scientifically  de- 
termine the  validity  or  invalidity  of  any  and  all  starting- 
points  in  the  historical  series  of  philosophical  systems.  The 
only  possible  "  presuppositionless  beginning "  must  be  one 
which  contains  in  itself  all  its  own  presuppositions  or  grounds. 
Such  a  beginning  is  the  Axiom  of  Philosophy,  "Human 
knowledge  exists,"  in  which  each  condition  in  the  imma- 
nent regress  stands  as  simply  an  actualized  particular  case 
of  the  more  widely  universal  condition  on  which  it  depends 
as  a  consequence,  and  in  which,  therefore,  the  whole  series 
of  conditions  inheres,  according  to  the  principle  that  every 
universal  inheres  wholly  in  the  totality  of  its  own  particu- 
lars, and  partly  in  each  and  every  one  of  them  —  just  as 


•'COGITO,  ERGO  SUM" 


67 


the  organic  constitution  is  immanent  in  the  entire  organism, 
and  both  immanent  and  transcendent  in  each  and  every 
separate  organ.     In  the  case  of  every  other  judgment,  the 
regressive  concatenation  of  conditions  can  be  expressed 
solely  by  a  chain  of  prior  and  separate  judgments,  of  which 
each  has  a  peculiar  content  different  from  that  of  every  other  • 
but,  in  the  case  of  the  Axiom  of  Philosophy,  the  regress  of 
conditions,  being  immanent,  is  expressedin  one  and  the  same 
judgment,  of  which  judgment  this  regress  simply  consti- 
tutes the  necessary  rational  significance.     In  other  words, 
whoever  affirms  that  "  Human  knowledge  exists  "  has  af- 
firmed objectively,  whether  he  subjectively  understands 
his  own  affirmation  or  not,  the  one  given  fact  of  which 
philosophy  itself,  in  its  entire  rational  development  both 
as  regress  to  conditions  and  as  progress  to  consequences,  is 
neither  more  nor  less  than  the  absohUely  necessary  meaiiiiig. 
All  philosophical  education  consists  in  gradually  learning 
to  understand  this  rational  necessity,  that  is,  in  gradually 
expanding  the  mind  to  comprehend  this  necessary  meaning 
of  the  Axiom  of  Philosophy.    For  the  "  existence  of  human 
knowledge  "  includes  all  that  has  yet  been  learned  by  the 
human  mind,  and  the  "advancement"  of  it  consists  in 
discovering  its  conditions  and  its  consequences  through  the 
inseparable  and  ever-increasing  co-activity  of  experience 
and  reason.    Philosophy  itself  is  the  self-comprehension  of 
human  knowledge  as  an  organic  whole,  and  its  first  problem 
IS  to  understand  the  germ  out  of  which  that  whole  has 
grown.     In  the  knowledge  that  knowledge  exists  lies  that 
original  germ ;  for,  rationally  developed,  it  is  self-conscious- 
ness,   race-consciousness,    world-consciousness,    and   God- 
consciousness,  all  in  one.   It  is  at  once  beginning,  principle, 
and  universal  explanation,  in  the  wide  meaning  of  the  Greek 
^Xn\  and  all  other  knowledges,  whether  of  conditions  or 
of  consequences,  of  particulars  or  of  universals,  are  but 
"cases "  of  it.     Because  it  is  the  only  possible  real  begin- 
ning or  principle  of  philosophy,  it  is  the  necessary  presup- 
position of   all  merely  apparent    beginnings,   and   to  it, 


68 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PniLOSOPHY 


"COGITO,  ERGO  SUM" 


69 


ll 


u 


I 


expressed  or  implied,  confessed  or  unconfessed,  all  these 
must  be  referred.  In  the  Axiom  of  Philosophy,  therefore, 
we  possess  an  unconditionally  valid  principle  of  philosophi- 
cal criticism,  by  which  we  can  determine  the  validity  or 
invalidity  of  any  and  all  professed  starting-points  in  the 
historical  series  of  philosophical  systems.  With  respect 
to  every  such  starting-point,  this  question  must  be  put: 
Is  it  an  "  intrinsic  truth  "  or  self -grounded  judgmertty  in  the 
sense  that  its  ground  is  identical  with  its  content  ?  In  other 
words,  Is  it  a  legitimate  form  of  the  Axiom  of  Philosoj^hg  ? 
If,  then,  the  affirmation,  "I  think,  therefore  I  am,"  is  in 
truth  equivalent  to  the  one  and  only  self-grounded  affirma- 
tion, **  Human  knowledge  exists,"  modern  philosophy  has 
already  effected  a  real  beginning.  Otherwise,  there  exists 
a  rational  necessity  for  rethinking  philosophy  as  the  neces- 
sary outgrowth  of  that  self-grounded  affirmation  —  a  ne- 
cessity so  profound  and  inexpugnable  that  nothing  short  of 
a  philosophical  revolution  can  satisfy  the  demands  of  reason. 
Such  a  rethinking  of  philosophy  as  the  universal  and 
necessary  science  of  human  knowledge  will  be  the  Philoso- 
phy of  Philosophy,  as  distinguished  from  the  history  or 
the  criticism  of  it. 

§  42.  That  such  a  rational  necessity  exists,  and  that  such 
a  philosophical  revolution  is  impending,  will  appear  indis- 
putable to  any  thoughtful  mind  that  frees  itself  from  preva- 
lent preconceptions  so  far  as  to  examine  with  due  care  and 
candor  the  actual  state  of  philosophy  to-day.  This  presents 
no  more  striking  characteristic  than  an  ill-concealed  despair 
of  the  possibility  of  philosophical  construction  on  a  uni- 
versal scale  —  despair  of  the  ability  of  the  human  mind, 
at  least  in  its  present  stage  of  culture,  to  arrive  at  a  world' 
science  at  once  unitary,  universal,  and  demonstrative.  This 
despair  crops  out  in  myriad  ways  and  forms  in  the  philo- 
sophical literature  of  the  period,  especially  in  Germany, 
the  birthplace  of  reines  Denken,  where  the  deep  river  of 
constructive  philosophy  seems  for  the  present  to  have 
spread  itself  out,  with  the  consequent  sacrifice  of  depth. 


into  a  wide  and  relatively  shallow  lagoon  of  historical 
and  critical  investigation. 

For  instance,  in  the  first  third  of  our  own  century,  Hegel 
attempted  to  think  the  universe  as  necessarily  and  demon- 
stratively one,  by  means  of  a  dialectical  and  genetical  de- 
velopment of  the  "categories  of  pure  thought."   But  to-day, 
in  one  of  the  latest  and  most  scholarly  of  the  numerous 
recent  histories  of  philosophy,  Windelband  limits  himself 
to  "the  history  of  problems  and  of  conceptions,"  as  "a 
continuous  and  everywhere  self-correlated  whole,"  —  that 
is,  as  "  the  historical  intertwisting  of  the  various  trains  of 
thought  out  of  which  has  grown  the  modern  view  of  the 
world  and  of  life ;  "  and  he  concludes  that  this  purely  his- 
torical aim  is  to  be  fulfilled,  "not  by  a  dialectical  evolution 
of  categories,  but  only  by  an  all-sided,  unprejudiced,  and 
thorough  investigation  of  the  facts."  ^     Hence  he  empha- 
sizes this  definition :    "  The  history  of  philosophy  is  the 
process  by  which   European  humanity  has   stored  up  its 
view  of  the  world  and  its  estimate  of  life  in  scientific 
concepts."*    This   scrupulous   regard   for   historical  truth 
prompts  and  justifies  his  animadversions  upon  Hegel's  dis- 
regard of  it,  in  forcing  facts  to  suit  his  theory,  and  construct- 
ing an  historical  order  after  the  pattern  of  the  dialectical 
order  of  the  categories.'    But  Windelband's  own  stand- 
point is  a  frank  confession  that  (in  his  opinion)  Kant  has 
"demonstrated  the  impossibility  of  a  philosophical  (meta- 
physical) world-science  at  the  side  of  or  above  the  particular 
sciences,  and  thereby  once  more  limited  and  revolutionized 
the  conception  and  problem  of  philosophy ;  "  that  thus  "  the 
province  of  philosophy  as  a  particular  science  is  narrowed 
to  the  Kantian  self-criticism  of  reason,"  while  its  only  uni- 
versal function  is  the  "  practical  direction  of  life ; "  and 
that  this  Kantian  conception  of  philosophy  is  "  new  and  to 
all  appearance  final,"  notwithstanding  the  candidly  admitted 

1  W.  Windelband,  Geschichte  der  Pbilosophie,  Vorwort,  1892. 

2  Ibid.     Eiuleitung,  p.  8. 
*  Ibid.     Einleitung,  p.  9, 


70 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


"COGITO,  ERGO  SUM" 


71 


fact  that  the  nineteenth  century  manifests  a  strong  "  incli- 
nation to  absorb  all  human  knowledge  into  philosophy  and 
expand  it  into  world-science."  ^  This  standpoint  it  is  not 
unjust  to  characterize  as  despair  of  the  ability  of  the 
human  mind,  in  any  possible  stage  of  culture,  to  arrive  at  a 
world-science  at  once  unitary,  universal,  and  demonstrative. 
§  43.  Granting,  however,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that 
this  standpoint  is  well  taken,  precisely  what  does  it  mean  ? 
It  is  summed  up  in  these  four  positions  : 

(1)  Philosophy  is  impossible  as  a  world-science,  a  uni- 
versal science  of  science.  This  is  true,  because  Kant 
"demonstrated"  it. 

(2)  Philosophy  is  possible  only  as  a  particular  science, 
—  the  Kantian  self-criticism  of  reason. 

(3)  The  history  of  philosophy  is  the  process  by  which 
the  European  mind  has  formed  a  mass  of  scientific  con- 
cepts respecting  the  world  and  human  life. 

(4)  This  purely  historical  mass  of  scientific  concepts 
must  be  understood  as  a  continuous  and  everywhere  self- 
related  whole  {ein  zusamvienhangendes  und  uberall  in  ehian- 
der  greifendes  Gauzes),  that  is  as  a  rational  unity. 

But  is  there  no  inherent  difficulty  in  uniting  these  four 
positions  with  each  other  ?    Examination  and  comparison 
reveal  a  fundamental  self-contradiction  in  Windelband's 
complex  standpoint.      The  fourth  position  directly  con- 
tradicts the  first.    To  understand  all  scientific  concepts  as 
a  rational  whole  is  of  itself  to  realize  philosophy  as  a 
universal  world-science.     If  these  ultimate  concepts  of  the 
European  mind  are  left  in  their  naked  and  brutal  actuality 
as  mere  historic    facts,    unphilosophized,    unrationalized, 
uncomprehended  in    their    unity    and    universality    as  a 
rational  or  demonstrable  system,  it  is  self-evident  that  the 
fourth  position  must  be   surrendered.    But,    if  they  are 
understood  as  a  rational  system,  then  it  is  equally  self- 
evident  that  the  first  position  must  be  surrendered.     The 
contradiction  here  seems  insuperable.    To  succeed  in  re- 
1  W.  Windelband,  Geschichte  der  Philosopliie,  Einleitung,  p.  8. 


ducing  the  mass  of  ultimate  scientific  concepts,  as  a  fact  of 
European  history,  to  a  rational  or  demonstrable  whole,  is 
to  succeed  in  doing  what  Kant  "  demonstrated  "  cannot  be 
done;   it  is  to  demonstrate  the  opposite,  and  overthrow 
Kant's  asserted  demonstration.    If  it  is  indeed  "  impossi- 
ble "  to  arrive  at  philosophy  as  a  unitary,  universal,  and 
demonstrative   world-science,  it  is  equally  impossible  to 
understand  the  mass  of  European  scientific  concepts  as  a 
rational  whole.     But,  if  it  is  indeed  possible  to  under- 
stand the  mass  of  European  scientific  concepts  as  a  rational 
whole,   then  it  is  not  only  possible,   but  rationally  and 
historically  necessary,  to  arrive  at  philosophy  as  a  unitary, 
universal,  and  demonstrative  world-science.     Waiving  all 
other  criticisms,    it  is  obvious  that,  if  Windelband  has 
succeeded  in  his  avowed  purpose   of  understanding  the 
historical  mass  of  scientific  concepts  as  a  rational  whole, 
he  has  himself  refuted  Kant  by  actually  creating  "  a  world- 
science  at  the  side  of  or  above  the  particular  sciences," 
the  "  impossibility  "  of  which  he  says  that  Kant  "  demon- 
strated;" and  he  has  himself   illustrated   the    practical 
necessity  of  a  philosophy  of  philosophy,  as  the  indispen- 
sable condition  of  a  philosophic  history  of  it.     To  the  his- 
torian,  the   existence   of  a  mass  of  European   scientific 
concepts  is  a  mere  fact  of  history,  a  pure  datum  of  experi- 
ence, a    simple    affair    of    manuscripts,   books,    editions, 
libraries,  given  first  of  all  to  the  historian's  senses ;  and  it 
would  be  idle   to  interpret  the  conversion  of  European 
concepts  into  a  conceptual  or  rational  whole  as  part  of  the 
"particular    science"  of   the  Kantian   "self-criticism  of 
reason,"  unless  Europe  itself,  its  history,  and  all  the  monu- 
ments and  records  of  its  history,   can  be  shown  to  be 
deductions  of  "pure  reason  a  priori J^    In  truth,  there  are 
but  two  logical  alternatives :  either  Kant  failed  to  "  demon- 
strate the  impossibility  of  a  philosophical  world-science," 
or  else  the  historian  himself  has  failed  to  "  understand  " 
the  mass  of    scientific    concepts    gained    historically  by 
"European  humanity"  as  a  rational  whole,  and  thereby 


72 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


failed  to  achieve  his  "principal  aim"  (meine  hauptsdch- 
liche  Ahsicht).  The  first  and  the  fourth  positions  noted 
above  are  irreconcilable  with  each  other. 

Nay,  more.     Windelbaud's  fourth   position   is  nothing 
but  an  unconscious  admission  of  the  falsity  of  his  own  first 
position.     Evidently,  he  himself  has  begun  to  outgrow  the 
cramping  Kantian  apriorism.     The  philosophy  which  is  to 
inherit  the  future,  however,  will  recognize  the  falsity  of 
that  first  position   with  complete  and  vigorous  conscious- 
ness; Windelband's  unconscious  self-contradiction  is  but  a 
dim  dawning  of  that    consciousness.     The   truth  is  that 
Kant  utterly  failed  to  demonstrate  the  impossibility  of  a 
philosophical    world-science  —  utterly    failed    to    restrict 
philosophy,  as  a  particular  science,  to  the  self-criticism  of 
reason  —  utterly  failed  to  separate  reason  from  experience 
as  even  possibly  "  pure,"  or  to  isolate  it  at  all  as  a  faculty 
which  is  capable  of  restricting  itself  in  its  cognitive  func- 
tion to  self-criticism  a  pnon.    Most  certainly,  if  reason 
could  possibly  abdicate  its  cognitive  function  as  knoivledge 
of  the  world  in  itself,  it  would  have  absolutely  disqualified 
itself  for  its  practical  function  as  direction  of  human  life; 
for    ignorant    direction    is    incalculably    worse    than    no 
direction  at  all.     How  could  reason  direct  practical  life  in 
a  world  of  which  it  really  knows  nothing  ?     If  it  is  once 
admitted  that  the  particular  sciences  are  real  knowledge  of 
the  world,  as  itself  a  reality  existing  independently  of  the 
mere  individual  subject  (and  Kant  himself  admits  this  in 
his  doctrine  of  "consciousness  in  general,"  the  universal 
consciousness  of  a  human  race  which  includes  a  multitude 
of  individual  subjects  as  "  things  in  themselves  "),  it  must 
be  admitted  that  reason  does  not  restrict  itself  (as  Kant 
teaches  that  it  does)  to  a  particular  science  of  philosophy 
as  mere  "criticism  of  reason  by  itself,"  but  necessarily 
furnishes,    in  the    mass    of   particular   sciences,    all   the 
materials,  data,  or  premises   from  which  to  construct  a 
"philosophical    world-science"    (Gesammtwissensehaft    or 
philosophische     Welterkenntniss),      Windelband's      fourth 


u 


COGITO,  ERGO  SUM" 


73 


position,  unconsciously  contradicting  his  first,  is  an  unde- 
niable recognition  of  this  truth,  an  unintended  recognition 
of  Kant's  failure.     To  this  extent,  at  least,  Windelband 
has    unconsciously    repudiated    the    Kantian    standpoint 
which  he  yet  conceives  himself  to  retain.    That  stand- 
point of  "  pure  reason  "  is  philosophy  in  a  swoon ;  and  the 
first  symptom  of  its  revival  will  be  a  conscious  reversal  of 
the    Kantian    revolution,  —  a  conscious   advance    to    the 
standpoint  of  the  identity  in  difference  of  experience  and 
reason   in  the  self  grounded  judgment,   as    the    necessary 
and  effective  starting-point  for  a  philosophy  of  philosophy. 
§  44.   There  must,  then,  be  a  "  philosophical  world-sci- 
ence."    Kant's  admission  of  the  possibility  of  philosophy 
as  a  particular  science  logically  involved  the  admission  of 
its  possibility  as  a  universal  science ;  for  the  particular  can 
be  grounded  in  and  explained  by  the  universal  alone.    This 
necessary  consequence  has  been  practically,  though  uncon- 
sciously, deduced  by  his  successors,  as  we  have  just  seen  in 
one  instance.     No  philosophic  history  of  philosophy,  such 
as  Windelband  has  consciously  aimed  to  produce,  can  pos- 
sibly be  written,  unless  it  derives  its  principles  of  criticism 
and  interpretation  from  the  philosophy  of  philosophy,  as 
its  ground,  explanation,  and  omnipresent  guide.    If,  that 
is,  a  "  philosophical  world-science  "  is  impossible,  a  philo- 
sophical history  of   philosophy  is   impossible ;   while,   if 
philosophy  is  possible  as  a  "  particular  science,"  it  can  be 
so  only  as  a  part  of  a  universal  science   of  science  —  a 
"  philosophical  world-science,"  or  philosophy  of  philosophy. 
Such  a  world-science,  when  it  comes,  will  be  philosophy 
itself,  unitary,  universal,  and  demonstrative;  and  this  it 
cannot  be,  unless  it  is  the  necessary  and  universal  develop- 
ment of    a  single    syllogistic    principle,   absolutely  self- 
grounded  in  the  sense  that  it  contains  within  itself  the 
entire  regress  or  series  of  its  own  conditions,  and  abso- 
lutely comprehensive  in  the  sense  that  the  entire  progress 
or  series  of  its  own  consequences,  involved  in  it  and  wait- 
ing to  be  evolved  from  it  in  strictly  logical  sequence,  is 


74 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


identical  with  the  entire  actual  and  potential  development 
of  universal  human  knowledge  as  a  whole. 

Now  a  single  principle  with  these  characteristics  can  be 
found  nowhere  but  in  the  self-grounded  and  all-comprehen- 
sive  affirmation    that   "human  knowledge  exists."     The 
development  of  this  principle  can  lead  to  the  establishment 
of  no  system  as  a  rigid  finality  incapable  of  growth,  but 
rather  to  the  establishment  of  a  new  conception  of  human 
knowledge  itself,  as  an  organic  unity  of  everywhere  inter^ 
penetrating  experience  and  reason,  whose   growth  can  be 
limited  by  nothing  so  long  as  the  human  spirit  continues 
to  expand.     It  is  a  principle  of  infinite  fertility,  and  dis- 
sipates at  once  the  vain  conceit  of  setting  up  fixed  "  limits 
of  human  knowledge.''    That  is  a  philosophical  supersti- 
tion of  the  past,  the  irrationality  of  which  will  be  explained 
in  a  later  chapter.    But  the  germinal  judgment  that  "hu- 
man knowledge  exists  "  has  been  already  shown  to  be  at 
once  empirical  and  rational  —  empirical  as  itself  a  fact  of 
experience,  rational  in  affirming  the  whole  reason  of  that 
fact,  and  self-grounded  in  affirming  both  fact  and  reason 
simultaneously  through  the  identity  of  its  own  ground  and 
content.    This  is  subsumption  of  experience  under  reason 
in  cognition  —  the  syllogism  itself.    The  regress  of  grounds 
which  is  immanent  in  that  affirmation,  when  this  is  under- 
stood as  at  once  cognition,  act,  and  effect,  ends  only  in  that 
ultimate  Ground  of  Grounds  which  is  the  bottom  reason  or 
cause-ground  of  all  facts  as  such  —  in  the  ultimate  Reason- 
Energy  of  the  World.     Human  knowledge  knowing   and 
affirming  itself  as  rea^  — this  is  the  whole  germinal  fact  of 
experience,  of  which  all  science  and  all  philosophy  are  but 
the  immanent  development  and  elucidation  by  reason  ;  the 
chronicles  of  philosophy  are  the  whole  literary  record  or 
contemporaneous  self-registry  of  that  elucidation  through- 
out the  ages,  as  the  gradual  coming  to  consciousness  of  rea- 
son  in  experience;  and  a  genuinely  philosophical  history  of 
philosophy  will  be  a  lucid,  comprehensive,  and  reasoned 
digest  of  that  vast  record,  determined  throughout  by  the 


(( 


COGITO,  ERGO  SUM" 


75 


philosophy  of  philosophy  as  the  matured  self-consciousness 
of  reason  in  experience.      That  germinal  fact  of  human 
knowledge,  the  actualized  identity  in  difference  of  experi- 
ence and  reason,  is  the  seed  of  all  philosophy ;  denial  of  it, 
doubt  of  it,  proof  of  it  except  from  itself  —  these  are  alike 
impossible  without  an  utterly  destructive  self-contradiction. 
Out  of  the  Axiom  of  Philosophy,  therefore,  must  be  made 
the  starting-point  of   the   philosophy  of  philosophy,   no 
matter  how  this  fundamental  principle  may  be  phrased ;  it  is 
the  only  possible  test,  standard,  or  criterion  of  the  various 
starting-points  which  have  been  made  from  time  to  time  in 
the  history  of  philosophy ;  and  the  application  of  it  must 
consist  in  a  critical  inquiry  whether  these  various  starting- 
points  are  identical  with  that  Axiom  in  essential  meaning. 
§  45.    But,  in  order  to  understand  that  inquiry,  it  is  of 
the  first  importance  to  observe  that  the  Axiom  of  Philoso- 
phy is  no  empty  form  of  words,  but  both  expresses  and 
constitutes  a  vital  act  — an  act  of  living  self-realization  — 
a  veritable  Thathandlung.     The  universal  knowledge  which 
it  affirms  becomes  a  particular  reality  in  that  very  affirma- 
tion, and  exists  then  and  there  as  a  fact  of  experience  in  the 
affirming  subject.     It  realizes  and  proves  itself ;  for  the  con- 
scious self-affirmation  of  knowledge  is  its  self-demonstration 
by  deed.     The  judgment  that  "  human  knowledge  exists  " 
cannot  be  understandingly  uttered  except  as  a  conscious 
act  of  human  knowledge  itself  —  knowledge  which  is  simul- 
taneously actual,  necessary,  and  one :  actual^  as  a  fact  of 
experience  then  and  there  in  the  affirming  human  subject ; 
necessary^  as  the  absolute  condition,  reason,  ground,  of  any 
rational  affirmation  by  any  human  subject ;  and  one,  as  the 
real  genus  inclusive  of  all  rational  affirmations  by  all  hu- 
man subjects,  —  immanent  in  all  these  affirmations  as  a 
whole,  and  both  immanent  and  transcendent  in  each  of 
them  as  a  part,  — phaenomenally  known,  therefore,  as  an 
actual  unit  of  experience  in  each  human  subject,  and  noumen- 
ally  known  as  a  necessary  universal  of  reason  both  in  and 
beyond  each  human  subject. 


■^ 


76 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


€€ 


COGITO,  ERGO  SUM 


77 


Consequently,  the  uttered  or^  written  Axiom  of  Philoso- 
phy,   as   starting-point,  positive    affirmation,    and  funda- 
mental principle,  is  at  once  a  fact  of  being  and  a  fact  of 
thought,  an  indissoluble  union  of  existence  and  knowledge. 
It  is  a  particular  instance  or  concrete  case  of  the  identity 
in  difference  of  experience  and  reason,  which  is  here  and 
now  exemplified  or  illustrated  by  the  identity  in  difference 
of  its  own  content  and  ground.     On  the  one  hand,  when 
fully   understood,   it    declares   the   existence   of   "human 
knowledge  "  in  a  twofold  form :  (1)  unitanj  knowledge,  as 
an  individual  mode  of  reality  in  the  form  of  an  actual 
cognition  in  particular,  or  experience  as   knowledge  of  a 
single  rational  judgment  with  a  definite  content ;  and  (2) 
universal  knowledge^  as  a  generic  mode  of  reality  in  the 
form  of  cognition  in  general,  or  reason  as  knowledge  of  the 
necessary  ground  of  all  rational  judgments  with  whatever 
content.     On  the  other  hand,  it  is  itself  a  case  of  the  very 
"existence"  of  human  knowledge  which  it  declares;  (1) 
unitary  existence,  as  a  single  cognitive  act  performed  by  the 
affirming  subject  in  the  moment  of  affirmation;  and  (2) 
universal  existence,  as  the  actual  presence  in  one  cognitive 
act  of  that  necessary  generic  reason  or  ground  without 
which  no  cognitive  act  is  possible.    The  only  valid  reason 
for  affirming  the  existence  of  knowledge  is  the  actual  ex- 
istence of  the  knowledge  which  is  affirmed;  for  nothing 
can  be  rationally  affirmed  to  exist,  unless  it  both  exists  and 
is  known  to  exist.    That  is,  the  affirmation  of  the  actual 
and  particular  existence  of  knowledge  here  and  now,  as  a 
fact  of  experience  in  the  affirming  subject,  is  conditioned 
on  its  actual,  universal,  and  relatively  necessary  existence, 
as  the  absolute  ground  of  all  rational  affirmations.    Thus 
both  the  content  and  the  ground  of  the  Axiom  are  not  only 
affirmations,  but  facts,  too.     The  content  is  a  particular 
fact,  and  the  ground  is  a  universal  fact ;  and  here,  as  always, 
the  particular  is  conditioned  by  the  universal.    The  content 
and  the  ground  are  identical  in  difference,  just  as  the  par- 
ticular and  the  universal  are  always  identical  in  difference  • 


the  content  is  a  particular  vital  act  of  self-knowing  knowl- 
edge in  the  affirming  subject,  while  the  ground  in  its  en- 
tirety is  that  series  of  grounds  which,  at  once  immanent 
and  transcendent  in  the  particular  act,  is  at  bottom  the 

universal,  necessary,  and  absolute  Ground  of  Grounds 

the  self-knowing  activity  or  Keason-Energy  of  the  World, 
without  which,  as  the  absolutely  conditioning  and  self- 
knowing  universal  (God),  the  particular  subject  could 
neither  exist  nor  rationally  affirm  itself  to  exist  as  a  con- 
ditioned and  self-k7iowing  individual  (Man).  This  great 
conclusion,  reached  apodeictically  through  the  regress  to 
conditions  immanent  in  the  Axiom  of  Philosophy  itself, 
may  be  reached  no  less  apodeictically  in  the  progress  to 
consequences  evolved  from  that  Axiom ;  whence  it  will 
appear  that  God  is  at  once  the  Alpha  and  the  Omega  of  all 
human  thought,  as  the  explanation  of  experience  by  reason 
in  philosophy.  For  the  entire  process  of  philosophy,  when- 
ever it  comes  to  comprehend  itself  as  the  universalized  scien- 
tific method,  can  be  nothing  else  than  the  rational  evolution 
of  that  World-Axiom,  affirming  the  total  knowledge  of  man 
in  a  seemingly  lifeless  and  indeterminate  universality, 
into  the  determinate  organic  unity  of  a  living  and  growin*» 
World-Science  as  the  knowledge  of  God.  The  whole  proc- 
ess is  immanent  in  human  knowledge,  and  the  beginning 
and  the  end  are  one. 

§  46.  When,  therefore,  reformed  modern  philosophy 
makes  its  " presuppositionless  beginning"  in  the  self- 
grounded  affirmation  that  "human  knowledge  exists,"  it 
begins  with  no  abstraction  whatever,  no  empty  verbal 
formula,  but  with  the  objective  reality  and  indivisible 
identity  of  the  particular  and  the  universal,  as  (1)  con- 
tent and  ground,  (2)  experience  and  reason,  (3)  existence 
and  knowledge,  (4)  causality  and  rationality,  and  (5)  causa 
8ui  and  ratio  sui,  or  Being  and  Thought:  not  without  dif- 
ference, but  in  difference,  as  distinguishable  but  insepa- 
rable in  the  empirically  apprehended  and  rationally 
comprehended  fact  of  human  knowledge.     The  criterion 


78 


THE   SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


of  all  philosophical  beginnings,  and  therefore  of  the  "I 
think,  therefore  I  am,"  must  be  the  critical  principle  of 
self-groundedness,  or  identity  of  content  and  ground;  be- 
cause, if  the  judgment  which  constitutes  the  starting-point 
of  philosophical  exposition  is  not  self-grounded,  it  is  not  a 
starting-point  at  all,  but  the  real  starting-point  must  be 
sought  in  some  presuppositionless  prior  judgment  external 
to  it.     As  literature,  philosophy  must  begin  its  reasoned 
process  with  some  verbally  stated  principle  which  admits 
neither  of  denial  nor  of  doubt  nor  of  demand  for  proof. 
Hence  it  lies  under  a  twofold  necessity :  the  practical  ne- 
cessity of  beginning  with  some  positive  affirmation,  and  the 
rational  necessity  of  beginning  with  no  ungrounded  affir- 
mation.    The  only  way  to  reconcile  these  two  necessities 
and  effect  a  start  at  once  positive  and  rational  is  to  begin 
with  a  judgment  which  affirms  its  own  rational  ground  as 
its  own  empirical  content,  and  thus  meets  the  demand  for 
self-groundedness  through  the  identity  of  its  own  content 
and  ground. 

Now,  on  the  one  hand,  tne  judgment  that  "  human  knowl- 
edge exists"  is  the  only  rational  affirmation  which  could 
not  be  denied  without  involving  an  absolute  intrinsic  con- 
tradiction between  content  and  ground  in  the  naked  denial 
itself  (§  12).     On  the  other  hand,  the  content  of  the  affir- 
mation is  itself  a  mere  matter  of  fact;  there  was  a  time 
when  human  knowledge  did  not  exist  at  all,  and  it  is 
remarkable  that  what  cannot  be  denied  without  absolute 
absurdity  should  yet  not  exist  of  absolute  necessity.     It 
is  the  combination  of  these  two  characteristics  in  one  judg- 
ment, and  in  only  one,  which  assigns  to  the  Axiom  of 
Philosophy  an  altogether  unique  position  among  rational 
affirmations,  and  makes  it  the  only  possible  real  starting- 
point  in  philosophy  itself.     For  what  the  Axiom  estab- 
lishes beyond  the  possibility  of  denial  or  doubt  is  this : 

I.  The  actual,  not  the  necessary,  existence  of  human 
knowledge  as  a  particular  fact  of  experience  in  the  par- 
ticular affirming  subject. 


"COGITO,  ERGO  SUM" 


79 


II.  The  relative,  not  the  absolute,  necessity  of  the  exist- 
ence of  human  knowledge  as  the  universal  fact  of  reason, 
if  that  existence  is  to  be  affirmed  at  all  as  a  particular  fact 
of  experience  by  any  particular  subject. 

III.  The  absolute  necessity  of  the  dependence  of  partic- 
ular fact  on  universal  fact,  consequence  on  condition,  or 
content  on  ground,  as  both  immanent  in  the  affirmation 
itself,  whenever,  wherever,  and  by  whatever  subject  that 
affirmation  may  be  made. 

From  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  no  other  judgment 
than  the  "  human  knowledge  exists  "  can  possibly  satisfy 
the  twofold  practical  and  rational  necessity  above  pointed 
out,  or  effect  a  self-grounded  beginning  for  philosophical 
procedure.  If  the  "I  think,  therefore  I  am,"  says  in  sub- 
stance precisely  the  same  thing  as  the  "human  knowledge 
exists,"  then  it  has  effected  a  rational  or  self-grounded 
philosophical  start.  But  if  it  says  something  less  or  other 
than  this,  then  it  really  depends  on  this  as  unacknowledged 
presupposition,  and  has  effected  a  merely  artificial  or  con- 
ventional, not  a  self-grounded  or  rational  beginning  in  the 
history  of  philosophy.  To  determine  this  point  is  the  aim 
of  the  following  examination. 

§  47.  The  "  I  think,  therefore  I  am,"  is  an  affirmation, 
proposition,  or  judgment,  and,  if  true,  must  be  grounded 
on  real  knowledge.  But  no  affirmation  is  itself  the  real 
knowledge  on  which  it  is  grounded.  The  knowledge  is  an 
original  fact  of  existence ;  affirmation  of  it  is  a  dependent 
and  derivative  fact  of  thought  and  speech,  not  at  all  neces- 
sary to  the  existence  of  that  original  fact,  since  we  all 
know  multitudes  of  things  of  which  we  are  not  at  present 
thinking  or  speaking;  and  the  original  fact  itself  is  the 
only  rational  ground  for  affirming  it.  Consequently,  as 
has  been  shown,  unless  the  particular  content  of  an  affir- 
mation is  its  own  universal  ground,  the  affirmation  itself 
cannot  be  self-grounded,  that  is,  cannot  be  a  first  or  self- 
demonstrative  affirmation  in  philosophy,  but  necessarily 
depends  on  some  prior  and  different  affirmation,  expressed 


80 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


"COGITO,  ERGO   SUM" 


81 


or  implied,  which  has  its  own  ground  as  its  own  content. 
Self-fjroundedncss,  then,  is  the  necessary  mark  of  any  phil- 
osophical beginning  that  shall  begin  in  a  rational  and  not 
merely  historical  sense  —  the  universal  test  or  criterion  of 
all  actual  beginnings  in  the  history  of  philosophy  —  the 
only  possible  realization  of  the  philosophical  ideal  of 
"  presuppositionlessness  "  (  VoraussetziuKjslosigkeit)} 

Now  the  real  ground  of  the  judgment  that  "human 
knowledge  exists  "  is  the  fact  that  human  knowledge  does 
really  exist.  If  the  judgment,  in  which  content  and  ground 
are  identical,  should  be  resolved  into  two  judgments  affirm- 
ing content  and  ground  separately,  it  could  only  take  this 
form :  "  human  knowledge  exists  that  human  knowledge 
exists."  Here  the  former  expresses  the  ground,  and  the 
latter  the  content.  But  the  double  judgment  says  neither 
more  nor  less  than  the  original  single  judgment  —  adds  to 
it  absolutely  nothing  of  essential  meaning;  for  the  entire 
ground  of  it  was  already  fully  and  completely  expressed 
in  the  content.  Hence  it  is  impossible  to  discover  a  prior 
affirmation  on  which,  as  a  ground  different  from  itself  the 
original  affirmation  may  depend ;  and  tliis,  therefore,  is  an 
absolutely  first  and  underived  affirmation  —  that  is,  one 
which,  as  content,  is  derived  solely  from  itself,  as  ground. 
Thus  the  Axiom  of  Philosophy  meets  the  critical  test  of 
self-groundedness,  or  unconditionedness,  or  "presupposi- 

1  "Die  erste  Frage  sonach  ware  die :  wie  ist  das  Ich  fiir  sich  selbst ? 
das  erste  Postulat :  denke  dich,  construiro  den  BegrifT  deiner  selbst,  und 
bemerke,  wie  du  dies  machst."  (Fichte,  Werke,  I.  458.)  "  Ein  voraus- 
setzungsloser  Anfaiig  wie  ihn  die  Philosophic  braucht,  ist  iiicht  durch 
eine  Behauptung  oder  einen  Satz  zu  fiiiden,  sondern  durch  eine  Furderung, 
welche  Jederniann  zu  erfiilleii  im  Stande  sein  muss :  *  Denke  dich  selbst ! ' " 
(Windelband,  Geschichte  der  Pliilosophie,  1892,  p.  464.)  Manifestly 
enough,  there  is  no  ''presuppositionless  beginning"  here.  A  postulate 
presupposes  a  posfulator;  a  demand  presupj>oses  a  demander.  The  only 
possible  " presuppositionless  beginning"  must  remain  a  judgment  which 
carries  all  its  own  presuppositions,  conditions,  or  grounds  in  itself — an 
*' intrinsic  truth."  Only  in  that  can  philosophy  really  begin.  Every 
other  oateuaible  beginning  is  a  delusion  and  a  snare. 


tionlessness,"  as  the  only  philosophical  criterion  of  philo- 
sophical beginnings. 

§  48.  Tested,  however,  by  the  same  criterion,  how  does 
it  stand  with  the  "  I  think,  therefore  I  am  "  ?  Descartes 
well  understood  and  deeply  felt  the  rational  necessity  of 
discovering  somewhere  an  absolute  certainty  to  begin  with, 
an  unconditionally  certain  starting-point,  if  he  was  ever  to 
escape  from  the  maze  of  universal  doubt  in  which  he  found 
himself.  "  I  will  reject  everything  which  admits  of  even  a 
particle  of  doubt,  no  less  severely  than  if  I  had  found  it  to 
be  altogether  false ;  and  I  wiH  go  on  until  I  learn  some- 
thing for  certain,  even  if  it  proves  to  be  no  more  than  the 
certainty  that  nothing  is  certain.  Archimedes  demanded 
nothing  but  a  point  that  should  be  firm  and  immovable,  in 
order  to  move  the  whole  earth  from  its  place ;  and  great 
things  may  be  hoped  for,  if  I  shall  discover  even  a  most 
trivial  truth  that  is  certain  and  unshaken.''  ^  He  believed 
that  he  had  found  this  Archimedean  point  of  absolute  cer- 
tainty in  the  "I  think,  therefore  I  am." 

That  this  maxim  was  deliberately  and  advisedly  adopted 
by  Descartes  himself  as  the  foundation  and  rational  start- 
ing-point of  his  whole  philosophy  cannot  be  doubted  in 
view  of  his  own  repeated  statements  of  the  fact.  For  in- 
stance:  "Observing  that  this  truth,  I  think,  therefore  lam, 
was  so  solidly  based  that  all  the  most  extravagant  vagaries 
of  the  sceptics  were  incapable  of  shaking  it,  I  judged  that 
I  could  receive  it  without  hesitation  as  the  first  principle 
of  the  philosophy  I  was  seeking."  ^  And  again:  "It  is  a 
self-contradiction  to  suppose  that  that  which  thinks  does 
not  exist  at  the  very  time  in  which  it  thinks.  Hence  this 
cognition,  '  I  think,  therefore  I  am,'  is  of  all  cognitions  the 
first  and  most  certain  that  occurs  to  any  methodical  philos- 
opher {cuilibet  ordine  iMlosophanti):'  «  From  Descartes 
the  maxim  has  been  received  with  substantial  unanimity 

^  Meditationes  de  Prima  Philosophia,  Med.  II. 
"  Disc'ours  de  la  Methode,  (Euvres,  ed.  Cousin,  IL  158. 
'  Principia  Philosopliiae,  I.  7. 
VOL.  I.  —  6 


82 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


by  all  succeeding  thinkers  as  the  first  clear  and  epochal 
formulation  ^  of  that  principle  in  which  consists  the  char- 

1   Windelband  claims  for  Augustine  the  honor  of  having  first  effected 
this  clear  formulation  of  subjectivism.     He  maintains  that,  ''as  a  philos- 
opher, he  made  the  principle  of  the  self-certaiiUy  of  consciousness  the  centre 
of  all  his  ideas  ; "  that  "all  these  ideas  have  their  ultimate  basis  and  their 
inner  union  in  the  principle  of  self-certain  inwardness,  whicli  Augustine 
first  expressed  with  complete  clearness,  and  formulated   and  treated  as 
the  starting-point  of  philosophy  ; "  that,  in  virtue  of  this  advanced  prin- 
ciple of  pure  subjectivism,    "he  shot  far  ahead  of  his  own  time  and  no 
less  the  centuries  which   succeeded,    and   became   one   of  the  founders 
of  modem  thmight ; "  and  that  he  anticipated  Descartes  in  extracting 
from  universal  doubt  the  special  argument  for  "the  valuable  truth  of 
the  reality  of  the  conscious  being:  even  if  I  should  err  in  everything 
else,  I  cannot  err  in  this,  for,  in  order  to  err,  I  must  be."    (Oeschichte 
der  Philosophic,  pp.   217,   218.)    Indeed,  Arnauld   had  already  quoted 
Augustine  to  Descartes  himself  on  this  last  point  (Meditationes,  Objec- 
tiones,   Quartae,  p.  108,   ed.  1663).     In  support  of  the  above  claim  for 
Augustine,  however,  Windelband  cites  from  the  latter's  De  Vera  Religiane, 
39:  72,  the  following  passage:  "  Noli  foras  ire  ;  in  te  ipsum  redi :  in  inte- 
riore  homine  habitat  Veritas."     But,  by  quoting  these  words  alone,  and 
italicizing  the  words  "interiore  homine"  instead  of  the  word  "Veritas," 
Windelband  misses  the  main  drift  of  Augustine's  far  profounder  meaning, 
which  is,  not  to  assert  the  mere  subjective  certainty  or  "  reality  of  the 
conscious  being,"  but,  on  the  contrary,  to  emphasize  his  absolute  oltjee- 
tive  dependence  on  that  universal  reason,  truth,  or  light —that  "lumen 
rationis "  which  Augustine  himself  explains,  in  §  73,  as  "lumen  verum 
quod  illuminat  omnem  hominem  venientem   in  hunc  mundum  "  ( Joan. 
I.   9)  —  which  is  at  once  immanent  and  transcendent  tn  the  individual. 
The  importance  of  this  point  is  so  great,  rationally  as  well  as  historically, 
as  to  justify  citation  of  the  whole  passage,  in  which  we  italicize  the  words 
that  most  pointedly  correct  Windelband's  too  subjective  interpretation: 
*'  72.     Quaere  in  corporis  voluptate  quid  teneat,  nihil  aliud  invenies  quam 
convenientiam :  nam  si  resistentia  pariant  dolorem,  convenientia  pariunt 
voluptatem.     Recognosce  igitur  quae  sit  summa  convenientia.     Noli  foras 
ire,  in  teipsum  redi ;   in  interiore  homine  habitat  Veritas;  et  si  tuam 
naturam  mutabilem  inveneris,  transcende  et  teipsum.    Sed  memento 
cum  te  transcendis,  ratiocinantem  animam  te  transcendere.     Illuc  er^o 
tende,  unde  ipsum  lumen  rationis  accenditur.     Quo  enim  pervenit  omnis 
bonus  ratiocinator,  nisi  ad  veritcUem  f  cum  ad  seipsam  Veritas  non  utique 
ratiocinando  perveniat,  sed  quod  ratiocinantes  appetunt,  ipsa  sit.     Vide  ibi 
convenientiam  qua  superior  esse  non  possit,  et  ipse  conveni  cum  ea.    Confi- 
TERE  TE  NON  ESSE  QUOD  IPSA  EST  I  siquidem  se  ipsa  non  quaerit ;  tu  autcm 


"COGITO,  ERGO  SUM" 


83 


acteristic  standpoint  of  modern  philosophy,  namely,  the 
"self-certainty  of  individual  consciousness."     But,  what- 

ad  ipsam  quaerendo  venisti,  non  locorum  spatio,  sed  mentis  affectu,  ut 
IPSE  INTERIOR  HOMO  CUM  suo  INHABITATORE,  non  infima  et  camali,  sed 
summa  et  spirituali  voluptate,  conveniat.      73  .  .  .  Deinde  rcgulam 
ipsam  quam  vides,  concipe  hoc  modo:  Omnis  qui  se  dubitantem  intelligit, 
verum  intelligit,  et  de  hac  re  quam  intelligit  certus  est :  de  vero  igitur 
certus  est.     Omnis  igitur  qui  utrum  sit  Veritas  dubitat,  in  seipso  habet 
verum  unde  non  dubitat ;  NEC  ullum  verum  nisi  veritate  verum  est. 
Non  itaque  oportet  eum  de  veritate   dubitare,    qui  potuit  undecumque 
dubitare.     Ubi  videntur  haec,  ibi  est  lumen  sine  spatio  locorum  et  tem- 
porum,  etsine  ullo  s|Mitiorum  talium  phantasmate.     Numquid  ista  ex  aliqua 
parte  corrumpi  possunt,   etiamsi  omnis   ratiocinator  intereat,    aut  apud 
carnales  inferos  veterascat  ?  Non  enim  ratiocinatio  taHafacit,  sed  invcnit. 
Ergo  antequam  inveniantur,  in  se  manent,  et  cum  inveniuntur,  nos  inno- 
vant."    (Sancti  Aurelii  Augustini  Opera  Omnia,  ed.  J.  P.  Migne,  Paris, 
1861,  III.)     All  that  Windelband  gets  out  of  this  wonderfully  luminous 
passage  is  mere  evidence  to  prove  that  the  "self-certainty  of  consciousness," 
construed  as  no  more  than  &fact  of  "  inner  experience,"  is  the  central  or 
pivotal  principle  of  Augustine's  entire  philosophy :  "The  rescue  from  doubt, 
therefore,  consists  in  the  Avgvstinian  argument  of  the  reality  of  the 
conscious  being.     But  Descartes's  application  of  it  is  not  the  same  as 
that  made  by  Augustine  and  the  majority  of  those  who  were  influenced  by 
him  in  the  transition  period.     For  the  latter,  the  self-certainty  of  the  soul 
was  simply  the  surest  of  all  experiences,  the  bottom  fact  of  internal  per- 
ception ;  in  consecjuence  of  which,  internal  perception  came  to  outweigh 
external  perception  in  their  theory  of  knowledge.  .  .  .  But  for  Descartes, 
on  the  contrary,  the  projiosition  cogito  sum  had  not  so  much  the  meaning 
of  an  experience,  as  rather  that  of  the  primary,  fundamental,  rational  truth, 
the  evidence  of  which  was  not  that  of  a  conclusion,  but  that  of  immediate 
intuitive  certainty  J"    (Oeschichte  der  Philosophic,  p.  309.)     Nothing  could 
be  more  unhistorical  than  this  treatment  of  Augustine,  and  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  travel  beyond  the  passage  quoted  in  order  to  become  convinced  of 
the  one-sidedness  of  such  treatment.     Augustine's  essential  positions  here 
are  these:  (1)  all  pleasure  is  explicable  as  harmony;  (2)  the  highest  har- 
mony, and  therefore  the  supreme  felicity,  is  harmony  of  the  individual 
soul  with  the  universal  truth  ;  (3)  on  the  one  hand,  universal  truth  is  im- 
manent in  the  "  inner  man,"  as  his  spiritual  "  indweller  "   {inhabitator)  — 
as  that  universal  reason  from  which  his  own  "  reasoning  soul  "  derives  the 
"light  of  reason  "  itself;  (4)  on  the  other  hand,  universal  truth  is  tran- 
scendent to  the  "  inner  man,"  is  "  itself  that  which  thou  art  not,"  but  is, 
nevertheless,  that  to  which  thou  must  rise  by   "transcending  thyself;" 
(5)  the  "  inner  man  "  ought  to  harmonize  himself  with  "  his  own  indweller," 


84 


THE   SYLLOGISTIC  PIIILOSOPriY 


I 


ever  loose  or  extravagant  claims  may  have  been  made  for 
this  formula,  it  cannot  be  the  rational  beginning  of  any 

and  through  this  harmony  attain  that  pure  pleasure  which  is  not  of  the 
flesh,  but  rather  of  the  spirit ;  (6)  universal  truth  exists  above  the  indi- 
vidual "conscious  being,"  constitutes  that  universal  'Might  of  reason  " 
which  conditions  all  his  perceptions  of  particular  truths,  and  constrains 
him  to  recognize  its  own  transcendent  existence  just  as  soon  as  he  comes 
to  know  a  single  particular  truth,  even  that  of  his  own  existence  as  a  mere 
doubter  ;  and  (7)  this  universal  truth  or  reason  exists  "  in  itself,"  can  be 
only  discovered,  not  created,  by  the  «'  reasoning  being  "  {ratiocumtor),  and 
would  still  exist  "in  itself,"  although   "every  reasoning  being  should 
perish."     This  doctrine  of  the  ontological  reality  or  necessary  objectivity  of 
*^ truth,"  ^  that  universal   "light  of  reason"  which  is  independent  of 
"  every  reasoner  "  and  conditions  his  very  existence  as  a  "  reasoning  soul,'* 
is  the  diametrical  opposite  of  the  Kantian  doctrine  of  the  necessary  subjec- 
tivity of  truth,  as  the  totality  of  "  laws  prescribed  to  Nature  "  by  the  legis- 
lative human   "consciousness  in  general."     No  penetrating  student  of 
philosophy  will  confound  these  two  doctrines.     The  fact  that  Augustine 
made  the  former  doctrine  the  true  "  centre  of  all  his  ideas  in  philosophy" 
renders  him,  notwithstanding  the  identity  of  one  of  his  arguments  with 
one  of  Descartes's  and  other  minor  but  superficial  resemblances  to  modern 
writers,  a  formulator,  not  of  the  one-sided  moilern  subjectivism,  not  of  the 
merely  subjective  "self-certainty  of  consciousness  "  or  "  reality  of  the  con- 
scious  being,"  but  of  the  broader  and  profounder  objectivism  of  ancient 
Greek  philosophy,  aa  applied  to  religion  by  Neo-Platonism  and  Christian- 
ity.    In  short,  Augustine  is  not  correctly  to  be  regarded  as  "  one  of  the 
founders  of  modern  philosophy,"  as  distinguished  from  ancient  philosophy 
by  the  principle  of  subjectivism.    Neither  is  it  correct  to  represent  Augus- 
tine as  taking  the  "  reality  of  the  conscious  being"  to  be  a  mere  fact  of 
inner  exiierience,  and  Descartes  as  taking  it  to  be  the  jnimary  truth  of 
reason;  for  this  distinction  to  the  disadvantage  of  Augustine  is  prohibited 
by  the  lattcr's  words  above,  where  he  lays  down  his  reyula  ipsa:  "  Every 
one  who  knows  that  he  doubts  knows  a  particular  truth  (vcrum),  and,  con- 
cerning this  fact  which  he  knows,  is  certain.      Every  one,  therefore,'  who 
doubts  whether  universal  truth  (veritas)  exists,  has  in  himself  a  particular 
truth  about  which  he  does  not  doubt ;  and  no  particular  truth  is  true,  ex- 
cept  through  universal  truth."     Descartes  himself  never  asserted  theimi- 
versality  of  rational  truth  so  profoundly  or  so  precisely  as  Augustine  here 
asserts  it.     For  to  Descartes  universal  truths  are  immanent  alone  (Prin. 
Phil.  I.  48  :  —  aeternas  veritates,  nullam  existentiam  extra  cogitationem 
nostram  habentes)  ;  while  to  Augustine,  as  shown  aljove,  they  are  both 
immanent  and  transcendent.     Augustine  was  a  Greek  Realist  ;  Descartes, 
like  all  subjectivists,  was  a  Conceptualistic  Nominalist  (Prin.  Phil.  I.  68  ': 


In 


if 
li 


[ 


"COGITO,  ERGO  SUM 


n 


85 


philosophy,  unless  it  meets  the  critical  test  of  self-ground- 
edness  through  the  identity  of  its  own  ground  and  content. 
What,  then,  is  its  own  ground  ? 

§  49.    What  renders  an  affirmation  rational  is  the  fact 
that  there  is  a  valid  reason  for  7tiakmg  it  in  knowledge  that 

it  is  true.  This  knowledge — actually  existent  knowledge 

is  the  only  valid  reason  or  ground  for  making  the  affirma- 
tion at  all.  If  it  is  not  known  that  the  content,  the  thin"- 
affirmed,  actually  is  as  it  is  aflSrmed  to  be,  then  the  affirma- 
tion itself  is  not  rational  —  has  no  valid  reason  or  ground 
at  all.  A  true  affirmation  is  one  which  has  this  only  valid 
reason  or  ground  in  real  knowledge ;  an  untrue  affirmation 
is  one  which  has  no  such  ground.  If  the  knowledge  is  not 
real,  actual,  existent, — if  the  affirmation  is  made  on  no 
better  ground  than  a  mistake  or  false  semblance  of  knowl- 
edge,—  then  the  affirmation  itself  is  a  mistake,  not  a 
rational  affirmation  at  all.  Only  the  true  affirmation  can 
be  a  rational  affirmation ;  its  truth  is  its  rationality,  and  its 
rationality  is  its  actual  groundedness  in  knowledge,  not  in 
mistake  or  mere  semblance  of  knowledge,  as  the  reason 
why  it  is  affirmed. 

It  would  not  be  relevant  here  to  object  that  we  cannot 
tell  whether  a  given  affirmation  is  true  or  not,  unless  we 
possess  some  absolute  criterion  of  truth,  some  infallible 
test  by  which  to  distinguish  between  real  knowledge  and 
its  false  semblance.  The  objection,  if  it  were  relevant, 
would  have  to  be  met  by  seeking  at  once  to  determine  such 
a  criterion  or  test.  But  it  is  not  relevant  here,  because 
that  is  not  the  point  under  consideration.  In  §§  11,  12, 
and  13,  demonstrative  proof  has  been  found  that  the 
existence  of  human  knowledge  can  neither  be  denied,  nor 
doubted,  nor  proved  except  from  itself;  the  affirmation  of 
it,  therefore,  is  well  grounded,  rational,  and  true,  since  the 
content  or  thing  affirmed  is  the  very  ground  of  all  ration- 

—  numenis  ...  est  modus  cogitandi  duntaxat,  ut  et  alia  omnia  quae  uni- 
versalia  vocamus)  ;  and  inappreciation  of  this  pregnant  fact  is  the  root  of 
Wiudelband's  misinterpretation. 


86 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


ality  and  truth  in  human  judgments.  The  immediate  ques- 
tion now  is  whether  the  judgment,  "I  think,  therefore  I 
am,"  the  truth  of  which  is  not  in  the  least  impugned  or 
doubted,  but,  on  the  contrary,  fully  conceded,  is  equally 
self-grounded,  equally  a  real  beginning  in  philosophy.  If 
its  ground  is  identical  with  its  content,  it  is  self-grounded 
in  this  very  identity.  Otherwise,  it  must  have  a  ground 
different  from  its  content,  and  for  that  reason  alone,  how- 
ever true  as  a  judgment,  be  neither  self-grounded  nor  a 
philosophical  beginning. 

Now  the  ground  of  the  judgment,  "I  think,"  as  a  rational 
judgment,  must  be  the  fact  that  "I  know."  If  this  be 
expressed,  the  affirmation  becomes,  "  I  know  that  I  think." 
Shall  we  say,  then,  that  knowing  and  thinking  are  abso- 
lutely identical,  in  so  strict  a  sense  that  the  content  of  the 
affirmation,  "  I  think,"  is  absolutely  one  and  the  same  with 
its  ground,  "  I  know  "  ?  This  must  be  conclusively  estab- 
lished, if  the  cogito  ergo  sum  is  to  meet  the  critical  test  or 
be  a  really  first  affirmation  in  philosophy. 

§  50.  Probably,  however,  when  this  question  is  explicitly 
put,  no  one  will  venture  to  maintain^that  "  I  think  "  and  "  I 
know  "  mean  absolutely  one  and  the  same  thing.*    Think- 

1  Kant  himself,  however  inadequately,  distinguishes  the  two  :  *'  Sich 
einen  Gegenstand  dcnkcii  und  eineu  Gegenstand  crkermcn  ist  also  nicht 
einerlei.  Zum  Erkenntnisse  gehiiren  namlich  zwei  Stiicke :  erstlich  der 
BegrifiF,  dadurch  iiberhaupt  ein  Gegenstand  gedacht  wird  (die  Kategorie) 
und  zweitens  die  Anschauung,  dadurch  er  gegeben  wird."  (Kritik  der 
reinen  Vernunft,  Werke,  III,  123-4).  A  man  who  in  the  dark  takes  a 
white  horse  for  a  ghost  has  both  "concept"  and  "intuition,"  but  certainly 
no  "  knowledge  "  of  the  "  object  of  experience."  A  concept  and  an  intui- 
tion together  are  not  enough  to  constitute  knowledge  ;  this  requires  a  third 
element  not  recognized  by  Kant,  namely,  truth,  or  re>al  agreement  of  the 
concept  with  its  object.  It  would  avail  nothing  to  argue  that  to  subsume 
the  intuition  of  the  "object"  under  the  concept  "ghost"  is  to  subsume 
the  intuition  under  the  wrong  concept ;  for  what  makes  the  concept 
"ghost  "  a  wrong  concept,  except  the  fact  that  it  fails  to  agree  vnth  the 
object  ?  Both  intuition  and  concept  must  agree  with  the  object,  or  there 
can  be  no  knowledge,  no  truth,  as  Kuno  Fischer  sees  and  says  {cf,  next 
footnote).     This  insight  is  at  least  as  old  as  Aristotle :  "  Ein  Urtheil  iat 


"COGITO,  ERGO  SUM" 


87 


ing  may  be,  and  often  is,  no  better  than  a  tissue  of  falsi- 
ties, mistakes,  delusions,  confusions,  contradictions.  It 
may  be  either  (1)  a  truth  grounded  on  knowledge,  or  (2)  an 
error  grounded  on  ignorance,  or,  as  more  commonly  hap- 
pens, (3)  a  mixture  of  truth  and  error  grounded  on  half 
knowledge  and  half -ignorance  —  on  mere  inaccuracy. 
Thought  may  be  either  true  or  false.  But  knowledge 
must  be  thought  which  is  true  — thought  which  actually 
conforms  the  relational  constitution  of  the  concept  to  that 
of  the  object  conceived,  whether  this  object  be  interpreted  as 
mere  phaenomenon  or  as  both  phaenomenon  and  noumenon.^ 
Every  object  may  be  "thought"  to  be  what  it  is  not;  but 
no  possible  object  can  be  "known"  to  be  otherwise  than  as 
it  is.     This  fundamental  diiference  between  thought  and 

wahr,  wenn  das  Denken,  dessen  innere  Vorgange  durch  die  Sprache  be- 
zeichnet  werden,  dasjenige  fur  verknupft  oder  getrennt  halt,  was  in  der 
Wirklichkeit  verknUpft  oder  getrennt  ist,  falsch,  wenn  das  Gegentheil 
stattfindet."     (E.  Zeller,  Die  Philosophie  der  Griechen,  II.  ii,  219  f.). 

*  Kuno  Fischer,  Geschichte   der  neuern   Philosophie,  1889,  I.  i.   4 : 
"  Wahr  ist  nur  diejenige  Vorstellung,  welche  der  Sache  oder  ihrem  Gegen- 
stande  vollkommen  entspricht.    Hier  aber  giebt  es  bloss  die  beiden  M'oglich- 
keiten,    dass    die    Uebereinstimmung  zwischen    Vorstellung   und    Sache 
entweder  stattfindet  oder  nicht;  in  dem  ersten  Fall  ist  die  Vorstellung  wahr, 
in  dem  andern  falsch."     Fischer  here  indicates  the  third  element  of  knowl- 
edge which  Kant  omits  (see  previous  note):  namely,  agi-eement  of  the 
concept  with  its  object  —  for  Bcgriff,  as  well  as  Amchauung,  is  Vorstellung. 
Even  Hegel  recognizes  this  agreement  as  necessary  to  knowledge  in  the 
sense  of  "  correctness  " :  "  Unter  Wahrheit  versteht  man  zunachst,  dass  ich 
wisse  wie  etwas  isL     Diess  ist  jedoch  die  Wahrheit  nur  in  Beziehung  auf 
das  Bewusstsein,  oder  die  formelle   Wahiheit,   die   blosse   Richtigkeit." 
(Werke,  VI.  386.)     What  he  calls  '  *  truth  in  the  deeper  sense  "  {Ibid.  334, 
386-7)  is  nothing  but  agreement  of  \he  object  with  its  own  idea  or  ideal 
—  ethical  truth^  in  a  sense  which  identifies  the  truth  with  the  good  and 
the  untrue  with  the  bad,  and  which  has,  therefore,  no  relevancy  to  the 
purely  scientific  problem.     The  latter  concerns  only  the  agreement  of  con- 
cept and  object,  as  Hegel  himself  understands:  ''Das  Ziel  aber  ist  dem 
Wissen  eben  so  nothwendig,  als  die  Reihe  des  Fortganges,  gesteckt ;  es  ist 
da,  wo  es  nicht  mehr  iiber  sich  selbst  hinaus  zu  gehen  nothig  hat,  wo  es 
sich  selbst  findet,  und  der  Begriff  dem  Gegenstande,  der  Gegenstand  dem 
Begrifie  entspricht."    (Werke,  II.  65.) 


88 


THE   SYLLOGISTIC  rHILOSOPHY 


"COGITO,  ERGO   SUM 


89 


knowledge,  whatever  inferences  may  be  drawn  from  it,  con- 
stitutes the  only  possible  foundation  of  a  scientific  episte- 
mology.     Thought  and  knowledge,  then,  are  not  identical, 
and  cannot  be  scientifically  identified,  so  long  as  ignorance 
and  error,  that  is,  facts  of  thought  which  are  not  facts  of 
knowledge,  continue  to  make  a  i)art  of  human  experience. 
Clearly,  then,  to  affirm  that  "I  tliink"  is  by  no  means  to 
affirm   that   "I   know."      To  take   the   famous  Cartesian 
maxim,  therefore,  as  a  rationally  first  affirmation  in  philos- 
ophy, is  altogether  to  lose  sight  of  the  truth  that  every 
philosophical  affirmation,  in  order  to  be  rational,  must  have 
its  bottom  reason  or  ground  in  real  knowledge,  as  an  abso- 
lutely undemonstrable  yet  absolutely  undeniable   fact  of 
existence;  it  is  to  mistake  a  derivative  for  a  self-derived 
judgment;    it  is  not   to  see   that,  back  of  the  "I  think, 
therefore  I  am,"   lies   necessarily  the  simple   "I  kncAv," 
as   its   rigorously   implied   prior   affirmation,    its   rational 
ground   different   from   and   external   to  itself,   since   the 
"  I  think,"  or  content,  is  by  no  means  identical  with  this 
ground,  and  since  knowing,  not  mere  thinking,  is  that  ab- 
original fact  with  which  all  philosophy  must  begin.    Hence 
the  '*  I  think,  therefore  I  am,"  failing  to  exhibit  identity  of 
content  and  ground,  cannot  be  the  rationally  or  logically 
first  affirmation  of  any  philosophy  whatever.      In  other 
words,  it  completely  fails  to  meet  the  philosophical  test  of 
self-groundedness,  and  is  no  real  beginning  in  philosophy 
at  all. 

§  51.  If,  nevertheless,  the  "  I  think,  therefore  I  am " 
has  been  accepted  by  modern  philosophy  as  the  aboriginal 
" presuppositionless  position"  of  self-consciousness,  the 
thinking  subject,  or  thought  as  such,  and  therefore  its  own 
rationally  first  affirmation,  ^  —  if,  in  strict  consequence,  mod- 

1  It  is  unnecessary  to  cite  many  illustrations  of  this  general  acceptance. 
A  few  will  suffice.  **  Mit  der  sicheren  Einfachheit,  welche  das  Genie  kenn- 
zeichnet,  vollbringt  er  [Descartes],  was  Not  thut,  indem  er  der  Philosophie 
im  Selbstbewusstsein  einen  festen  Ausgangspunkt  l)escheert,  in  der  Fol- 
gerung  aus  klaren  und  deutlichen  Begriffen  ein  des  Erfolges  sicheres  Ver- 


ern  philosophy  has  aimed  persistently  at  the  knowledge  of 
thought  rather  than  at  the  knowledge  of  knowledge,  —  and 
if,  still  in  strict  consequence,  modern  philosophy  has  ar- 
rived at  the  conclusion  that  there  is  no  real  knowledf^e 
whatever  except  the  knowledge  of  thought, — the  bridge- 
lessness  of  the  chasm  between  modern  philosophy  and 
modern  science  in  their  present  condition  is  but  the  severe 
penalty  entailed  upon  a  seemingly  trivial,  yet  in  reality  a 
momentous  error.  How  great  was  this  error,  and  how  nec- 
•  essarily  it  lurked  in  this  false  beginning,  appears  conspicu- 
ously in  the  very  first  consequence  which  Descartes  himself 
drew  from  his  own  first  principle. 

fahren  darbietet  und  in  der  niecbanischeu  Naturcrkliirung  die  dringlichste 
und  zukunftsreichste  Aufgabe  stellt."     (K.  Falckeiiborg,  Gcschicbte  der 
neucren  Pliilosopliie,  1892,  p.  70.)—  "Seine  Pliilosopliio  will  eine  Univer- 
salniathenuitik  sein.  .  .   .  Urn  so [gitisser  aber  war  die  Macht  seiner  Ein- 
wirkung  auf  die  philosophische  Entwickhing,  in  der  er  der  Ixiherrscliende 
Geist  fiir  das  17.  Jahrhundert  und  duriibur   hinaus  geweseu   ist.     Den- 
jenigen   metliodischen  Gedanken,   welche  Bacon  und  Galilei  genieinsani 
sind,  fugte  Descartes  ein  Postulat  von  gi-usster  Tragweite  hinzu :  er  ver- 
langte,   dass   die   inductive  oder   resolutive  Methode  zu  eineni  einzigen 
Prlncip  hiklistcr  und  ahsulutcr  Gewiss/tcU  fuhren  solle,  von  dem  aus  als- 
dann  nach  com^wsitiver  Methode  der  gesamnite  Unifang  der  Erfahruuf^ 
seine  Erkliirung  finden  luUsse.     Diese  Forderung  war  durchaus  originell 
und  wurzelte  in  dem  Bediirfniss  nacli  eiuein  systematischen  Ziisammen- 
hange  aller  menschlichen  Erkenntniss :  sie  beruhte  zuletzt  auf  dem  Ueber- 
druss  an  der  traditionellen  Aufuahme  des  historisch  zusammengeleseneu 
Wissens  und  auf  der  Sehnsucht  nach  ciner  neuen  philosophischen  S(^hop. 
fung  aus  Einem  Guss.     So  will  denn  Descartes  durch  eine  inductive  Enu- 
meration und  eine  kritische  Sichtung  aller  Vorstellungen  zu  dem  einzig 
gewisseu  Tunkte  vordringen,  urn  von  hior  aus  die  Ableitung  aller  weiteren 
Wahrheiten  zu  gewinnen.  ...  Die  Seimgcicisshcit  des  Bcwusstseins  ist 
die  einheitliche  und  fundamentale  Wahrheit,  welche  Descartes  durch  die 
analytische  Methode  findet."     (W.  Windelband,  Geschichte  der  Philoso- 
phie, 1892,  pp.  307-309.)  — *"Ccs^  moi,  que  jc  peins!'    Dies  ist  der 
Standpunkt,  auf  welchem  Michel  de  Montaigne  (1533-1592)  im  Schluss- 
punkt  der  philosophischen   Renaissance  erscheint  ;   dieser  Satz  ist  das 
ausgesprocheue  und  durchgangige  Thema  seiner  Selbstschilderungen  oder 
Essays  (1580-1588).  .  .  .  Montaigne   steht  an   der  Schwelle  der  neuen 
Philosophie,  die  er  nicht  iiberschreitet.     Diese  beginnt,  wo  jener  endet  : 
mit  dem  auf  die  Selbstbeobachtung  und  Solbstpriifung  gegriiudeten  Zwei- 


90 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


"COGITO,  ERGO  SUM'' 


§  52.  The  "I  think,  therefore  I  am,"  having  been  laid 
down  as  the  one  self-evident  certainty  and  absolute  start- 
mg-point  of  his  philosophy,  Descartes's  first  question  was  • 
"What  am  I?"  He  thus  answered  his  own  question-' 
"Hence  I  knew  that  I  was  a  substance  of  which  the  whole 
essence  or  nature  is  merely  to  think,  and  which,  in  order 
to  be,  needs  no  place  and  depends  on  no  material  thing;  so 
that  this  I,  that  is  to  say,  the  soul  by  which  I  am  whit  I 
am,  is  totally  independent  of  the  body,  is  still  easier  to  un- 
derstand than  the  body,  and,  even  though  the  body  did  not 
exist,  would  continue  to  be  all  that  it  is."  ^  Similarly :  «  Of 
those  things  which  I  attributed  to  the  soul,  what  [really 

fel,  der  auch  den  Glauben  an  die  Natur,  aber  an  die  Erkennbarkeit  der- 
selben  in   sich  schliesst.      Es   ist  der  die   Erkenntniss   suchende    and 
erzeugende  Zweifel,  der  Bacon  und  Descartes,  die  Begriinder  der  neuen 
Philosophie,  bewegt."  (K.  Fischer,  Geschichte der  neuern  Philosophie,  1889, 
I.  1,  pp.  107,  108.)—  "Das  Denken  muss  von  sich  anfangen,  und  diess  ist 
der  voraussetzungsloseAnfang  der  Philosophie."    (C.  Prantl   Die  Bedeu- 
tung  der  Logik   fur  den  jetzigen   Standpunkt  der   Philosophie,    1849, 
1.  1,  p.  122).  —  "  Die  Philosophie  ist  voraussetzungslos.     Diese  Vorausset' 
zungslosigkeit  ist  ihr  Anfang,  derjenige  Anfang,  durch  welchen  sie  sich 
Ton  alien  andern  Wissenschaften  unterscheidet,  und  erst  als  eigentumliche 
selbstandige  Wissensehaft  enteteht.     Sie  ist  der  Begriff  der  Philosophic' 
80  wie  derselbe  in  ihrem  Anfange  auftritt.  ...  Die  Aufhebung  aller  Vor' 

aussetzung  muss  also  zugleich  absolute  Setzung  sein Die  Setzunc 

wie  gefordert  wurde,  ist  zugleich  Setzung  aller  Realitat  .  .  .  Dieser  An^ 
fang  der  Philosophie  ist  absolut ;  die  Philosophie  fangt  schlechthin  an 
Er  1st  grundlos,  unbeweisbar ;  aber  er  bedarf  auch  keines  Beweises* 
Beides,  well  er  eine  Setzung  ist,  die  alle  Voraussetzung  aufhebt 
Der  Anfang  der  Philosophie  ist  das  reine  Ich.  ...  Rein  ist  es,  weil  es' 
was  es  ist,  nur  als  sein  Thun  ist.  Das  reine  Ich  ist  daher  Eine  Handlun  J- 
m  unendhch  vielen,  so  dass  jede  einzelne  nur  Handlung  ist,  indem  sie 
zug  eich  alle  ist,  und  die  Einheit  der  Handlung  selbst  in  der  Fonn  der 

Vieheit  sich  darstellt Die  Aufhebung  aller  Voraussetzung,  welche 

zugleich  absolute  Setzung  ist,  ist  in  dem  beriihmten  Satze  des  Cartesius  • 
duhito,  cogiio,  ergo  sum,  und  in  seiner  Lehre  von  Gott,  als  dem  Erkennt^ 
nisspnncip  des  Realen,  ausgesprochen. "  (J.  F.  Reiff,  Der  Anfang  der 
Philosophie  1840,  pp.  l.ll.)-"Jener  Satz,  urn  den,  wie  man  Len 
kann,  sich  das  ganze  Interesse  der  neuen  Philosophie  dreht  .  .  .  ^iu> 
ergo  mm."    (Hegel,  Fncyclopadie,  Werke,  VI.  132.)  .  .  v,^    - 

1  Discours  de  la  Me'thode,  (Euvres,  I.  168-159. 


91 


belongs  to  it]  ?  To  be  nourished,  or  to  walk  ?  If  I  no 
longer  have  a  body,  these  things,  too,  are  nothing  but  fan- 
cies. To  feel  ?  This,  also,  does  not  happen  without  a 
body,  and  in  dreams  I  have  seemed  to  feel  very  many 
things  which  afterwards  I  knew  I  had  not  felt.  To  think  ? 
Here  I  make  a  discovery ;  thought  is  —  this  alone  cannot 
be  separated  from  me  — I  am —  I  exist -that  is  certain. 
But  how  long  ?  Verily,  a^  long  as  I  think;  for,  if  I  should 
wholly  cease  to  think,  it  might  happen,  perhaps,  that  I 
should  instantly  and  wholly  cease  to  be.  I  concede  noth- 
ing now  except  what  is  necessarily  true.  To  speak  pre- 
cisely, therefore,  I  am  only  a  thing  which  thinks  [ta7itum 
res  cogitansl  that  is,  a  mind,  or  soul,  or  intellect,  or  reason 
—  words  of  a  meaning  before  unknown  to  me.  I  am,  then, 
a  real  and  really  existing  thing.  But  what  sort  of  thing  ? 
I  have  told :  a  thing  which  thinks."  ^ 

Here  Descartes  fully  and  freely  develops,  in  his  own 
way,  the  whole  meaning  or  intellectual  content  of  his  own 
fundamental  principle:  ''I  think,  therefore  I  am.  What 
am  I  ?  I  am  only  a  thing  which  thinks  "  (tantum  res  cogU 
tans  —  cogitationem  solam).  Applying,  therefore,  the  equa- 
tion thus  carefully  established,  « I  =  a  thing  which  thinks," 
and  substituting  in  his  principle  the  second  for  the  first 
member  of  this  equation,  as  its  precise  equivalent,  the  prin- 
ciple takes  this  cruel  form:  "^  thing  which  thinks  thinks, 
therefore  a  thing  which  thinks  is  only  a  thing  ivhkh  thinksJ* 
So  fatal  is  it  to  begin  amiss  !  This  is  the  necessary  and 
only  logical  result  of  taking  individual  thought,  and  not 
universal  knowledge,  as  the  first  fact  of  philosophy.  But  is 
it  a  rationally  significant  result?  "^  thing  ichich  thinks 
thinks,  therefore  a  thing  which  thinks  is  a  thing  which 
thinks.''  This  platitude  exhausts  the  rational  significance 
of  the  ego  cogito,  ergo  sum,  and  shrivels  it  up  into  the  empty 
tautology  of  a  purely  abstract  identical  proposition.  All 
that  it  actually  affirms  may  be  condensed  into  the  short 
single  judgment :  « Individual  thought  exists."  But  what 
1  Meditatio  Secunda,  ed.  1663,  pp.  10,  11. 


92 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


here  becomes  of  the  individual  I  —  what  becomes  of 
the  "  self-certainty  of  the  conscious  being  "  as  a  particular 
coiisciausness  here  and  7ioiv? 

§  53.  The  truth  is,  Descartes  unconsciously  plays  fast 
and  loose  with  his  ego,  and  modern  philosophy  keeps  up 
the  same  game  to  the  present  day.  The  (ef/o)  cogito,  ergo 
sum,  afhrms,  indeed,  the  existence  of  individual  thought; 
but  this  Descartes  himself  interprets,  now  as  present  con- 
sciousness or  indiuidual  experieiicej  and  now  as  universal 
reason  —  now  as  a  concrete  or  "empirical  I,"  and  now 
as  an  abstract  or  "  pure  I,"  that  is,  a  rational  I  pure  from 
all  experience.  In  other  words,  he  takes  the  ego  now  as  an 
empirical  unit,  now  as  a  rational  universal,  not  determining 
accurately  in  his  own  mind  the  relation  of  the  two,  but 
leaving  his  treatment  open  to  the  charge  of  confusion  of 
thought.  In  order  to  arrive  at  clearness  on  this  subject  a 
threefold  distinction  must  be  made  between  the  purely  em- 
pirical I,  the  purely  rational  I,  and  the  real  I,  both 
empirical  and  rational  at  once.  The  first  two  concepts 
rest  on  the  separation  of  experience  and  reason,  while  the 
third  concept  rests  on  their  identity  in  difference.  If  it 
is  true,  as  Erdmann  maintains,  that  "the  course  of  modern 
philosophy  henceforth  is,  not  to  reach  the  self  by  starting 
from  the  world  or  God,  but  to  find  the  way  back  to  a  world 
and  to  God  by  starting  from  the  self,"  ^  then  it  is  evident 
that  Descartes  led  and  still  leads  the  "modern"  phil- 
osophical movement  as  Subjectivism,  and  it  becomes  of 
paramount  importance  to  clear  away  all  confusion  from  the 
concept  of  the  self  or  I.  To  this  end  the  distinction  named 
is  essential,  and  we  shall  now  proceed  to  consider  it  at 
length. 


1  J.  E.   Erdmann,  Grundriss  der  Geschichte  der  Philosophic,  II.  4, 
3ded. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  I:  EMPIRICAL,  RATIONAL,  REAL 

§  54.^  The  purely  empirical  I  is  an  attempt  to  conceive 
the  self  as  a  collection  of  units  without  a  universal,  a  suc- 
cession of  differing  states  of  consciousness  without  a  neces- 
sary ground  of  identity,  a  series  of  transient  and  multiple 
acts  without  a  permanent  and  unitary  conditioning  activity. 
The  most  forcible  expression  of  this  theory,  perhaps,  is 
that  of  Hume;  — 

"  But,  further,  what  must  become  of  all  our  particular  percep- 
tions upon  this  hypothesis?    All  these  are  different,  and  distin- 
guishable, and  separable  from  each  other,  and  may  be  separately 
considered,  and  may  exist  separately,  and  have  no  need  of  any 
thing  to  support  their  existence.     After  what  manner,  therefore, 
do  they  belong  to  self,  and  how  are  they  connected  with  it?    For 
my  part,  when  I  enter  most  intimately  into  what  I  call  myself,  I 
always  stumble  on  some  particular  perception  or  other,  of  heat  or 
cold,  light  or  shade,  love  or  hatred,  pain  or  pleasure.     I  never  can 
catch  myself  at  any  time  without  a  perception,  and  never  can  ob- 
serve anything  but  the  perception.  .  .   .     Setting  aside  some  meta- 
physicians of  this  kind,  I  may  venture  to  affirm  of  the  rest  of 
mankind  that  they  are  nothing  but  a  bundle  or  collection  of  differ- 
ent perceptions,  which  succeed  each  other  with  an  inconceivable 
rapidity,  and  are  in  a  perpetual  flux  and  movement.  .  .  .     The 
mind  is  a  kind  of  theatre,  where  several  perceptions  successively 
make  their  appearance;  pass,  repass,  glide  away,  and  mingle  in  an 
infinite  variety  of  postures  and  situations.     There  is  properly  no 
simplicity  in  it  at  one  time,  nor  identity  in  different  (times),  what- . 
ever  natural  propension  we  may  have  to  imagine  that  simplicity 
and  identity.     The  comparison  of  the  theatre  must  not  mislead  us. 
They  are  the  successive  perceptions  only  that  constitute  the  mind ; 
nor  liavft  we  the  most  distant  notion  of  the  place  where  these 
scenes  are  represented,  or  of  the  materials  of  which  it  is  composed. 


94 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PinLOSOPnY 


...     It  is  evident  that  the  identity  which  we  attribute  to  the 
human  mind,  however  perfect  we  may  imagine  it  to  be,  is  not  able 
to  run  the  several  different  perceptions  into  one,  and  make  them 
lose  their  characters  of  distinction  and  difference,  which  are  essen- 
tial to  them.     It  is  still  true  that  every  distinct  perception  which 
enters  into  the  composition  of  the  mind  is  a  distinct  existence,  and 
is  different,  and  distinguishable,  and  separable  from  every  other 
perception,  either  contemporary  or  successive.     But  as,  notwith- 
standing this  distinction  and  separability,  we  suppose  the  whole 
train  of  perceptions  to  be  united  by  identity,  a  question  naturally 
arises  concerning  this  relation  of  identity,  whether  it  be  something 
that  really  binds  our  several  perceptions  together,  or  only  asso- 
ciates their  ideas  in  the  imagination;   that  is,   in  other  words, 
whether,  in  pronouncing  concerning  the  identity  of  a  person,  we 
observe  some  real  bond  among  his  perceptions,  or  only  feel  one 
among  the  ideas  we  form  of  them.     This  question  we  might  easily 
decide,  if  we  would  recollect  what  has  been  already  proved  at 
large,  that  the  understanding  never  observes  any  real  connection 
among  objects,  and  that  even  the  union  of  cause  and  effect,  when 
strictly  examined,  resolves  itself  into  a  customary  association  of 
ideas.     For   from    thence    it    evidently   follows   that  identity   is 
nothing  really  belonging  to  these  different  perceptions,  and  unit- 
ing them  together,  but  is  merely  a  quality  which  we  attribute  to 
them,  because  of  the  union  of  their  ideas  in  the  imagination  when 
we  reflect  upon  them."  ^ 

§  55.  The  concept  of  the  purely  empirical  I,  therefore, 
is  that  of  a  succession  of  perceptions  which  contain  no 
principle  of  union  whatever,  each  subsisting  independently 
in  itself  as  a  "distinct  existence"  which  is  "different,  and 
distinguishable,  and  separable  from  every  other  perception, 
either  contemporary  or  successive,"  and  which  has  "no 
need  of  anything  to  support  its  existence."  But  this  is  a 
self-contradictory  and  self-destructive  concept,  because  it 
is  an  attempt  to  conceive  units  of  a  kind,  yet  without  con- 
cdving  any  kind.  Hume's  "succession  of  perceptions," 
however  self-subsistent  he  may  imagine  these  to  be,  is 
necessarily  conditioned  on  pcrceptio7i  itself,  on  that  unitary 

1  David  Hume,  Treatise  of  Human  Nature,  Book  I,  Part  IV,  Section  6. 
(Philosophical  Works,  ed.  1854,  I.  m2-3i>l.) 


W 


THE  I:   EMPIRICAL,  RATIONAL,  REAL  95 

and  universal  perceiving  energy  of  which  each  particular 
perception  is  merely  a  single  case,  and  which  of  itself  must 
really  connect  all  particular  perceptions,  if  these  are  to 
constitute  a  real  "  succession  of  perceptions  "  at  all.    In  con 
ceiving  and  designating  his  «  related  objects  »  as  in  them, 
selves  something  more  than  mere  non-resembling  existences 
or  self-subsistences,  as  in  themselves  actual  and  "  resem 
bhng  perceptions,"  he  inadvertently  acknowledges  among 
these  "related  objects"  a  real  resemblance,  a  real  ground 
of  union,  a  real  unity  and  identity  of  kind,  which  is  the 
absolute  condition  of  his  "succession  of  perceptions,"  and 
constitutes  their  real  and  known  connection.    Hume  himself 
unwittingly  recognizes  this  fact  when  he  speaks,  in  the  very 
first  line  of  the  quoted  passage,  of  "all  our  particular  per- 
ceptions."    Particulars  of  what?    Surely,  not  of  nothin- 
If  our  perceptions  are  all  particular  cases  of  something 
that  something  is  as  real  as  they.    "  Perceptions, "  as  cases, 
units,  or  specimens,  can  be  no  more  real  and  no  more  know- 
able  than  "perception,"  as  principle,  universal,  or  species 
—  that  is,  as  perceptive  activity  or  perceiving  energy  in 
general.     This  "perception"  in  general,  without  which  it 
IS  ridiculous  to  speak  of  "perceptions"  in  paHicidar,  is 
Itself  their  common  condition  and  their  common  origin 
and  consequently  their  real  and  known  connection  as  "re- 
lated objects."    Consequently,    when  he   maintains   that 
the  understanding  never  observes  any  real  connection 
among  objects,"  he  confounds  his  own  argument,  destroys 
his  own  concept,  satirizes  his  own  phraseology,  and  falls 
into  a  contradiction,  which  is  irremediable  because  he  is 
so  naively  unconscious  of  it.     Even  the  great  apostle  of 
empiricism,  when  he  tried  to  conceive  a  purely  empirical 
I,  could  frame  no  other  than  an  unscientific  concept,  be- 
cause  he  had  no  scientific  theory  of  universals.     Granting 
as  Hume  correctly  maintains,  that,  "when  I  enter  most 
intimately  into  .vhat  I  call  my.df,  I  always  stumble  on 
some  particular  perception  or  other,  of  heat  or  cold,  light 
or  shade,  love  or  hatred,  pain  or  pleasure, "-granting  that 


96 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


"  I  never  can  catch  myself  at  any  time  without  a  percep- 
tion,"—  it  follows  that  it  is  absurd  to  maintain  at  the 
same  time,  as  Hume  does,  that  "  I  never  can  observe  any- 
thing but  the  perception."  For,  self-evidently,  unless  I 
observe,  not  only  the  particular  perceptions  one  by  one, 
but  also  a  connection  aiiiony  them  which  makes  them  all 
"perceptions,"  and  vhichy  therefore,  is  just  as  real  as  the 
perceptions  themselves,  I  never  can  observe  that  there  is 
any  *' succession  of  perceptions"  at  all — can  never  connect, 
without  the  warrant  of  this  observation  of  a  real  connection, 
the  isolated  occurrences  as  a  class  by  themselves,  or  con- 
ceive them  as  alike  in  kind,  or  designate  them  all  by  one 
and  the  same  term.  Precisely  the  same  necessity  holds 
good  of  the  series  of  conscious  states  in  general;  every 
conscious  state  is  necessarily  conditioned  on  that  of  which 
it  is  a  state,  that  is,  on  consciousness  itself,  as  a  unitary, 
universal,  and  continuous  conscious  energy,  of  which  each 
particular  conscious  state  is  merely  a  single  case.  The 
thing  cannot  possibly  be  thought  otherwise.  In  short,  the 
concept  of  a  purely  empirical  I  is  that  of  a  collection  of 
things  of  a  hind  without  any  kind,  a  series  of  units  without 
any  universal,  and,  therefore,  as  absolutely  unthinkable 
and  self-destructive  as  the  concept  of  a  spherical  cube. 

§  50.  On  the  other  hand,  the  purely  rational  I  is  an 
attempt  to  conceive  the  self  as  a  universal  without  any 
units,  a  rational  self-consciousness  pure  from  all  empirical 
elements  or  conscious  states,  a  universal  and  conditioning 
thought-activity  isolated  from  all  particular  and  condi- 
tioned thought-functions  or  thought-acts,  — that  is,  a  mere 
logical  subject  abstracted  from  all  real  determinations. 
The  typical  form  of  this  theory,  and  tlie  root  of  all  later 
forms  of  it,  is  undoubtedly  that  of  Kant.  The  substance 
of  it  is  as  follows :  — 

I.  Every  single  mental  presentation  or  representation 
(Vorstellung),  whether  state  or  act,  intuition  or  concept, 
or  whatever  else,  must,  in  order  to  be  w//  representation, 
be  accompanied  possibly,  if  not  actually,  by  another  and 


It 


THE  I:    EMPIRICAL.   RATIONAL.  REAL 


97 


omnipresent  representation,  /  think  (ich  denke).  This 
omnipresent  I  think  is  the  necessary  condition  of  the 
combination  ^  of  the  manifold  content  of  each  intuition  into 
one  representation,  and  of  the  manifold  stream  or  series  of 
representations  into  the  empirical  consciousness  of  one 
subject. 

II.  This  invariably  concomitant  representation  /  think 
is  an  act  of  spontaneity.  That  is,  it  cannot  belong  either 
to  the  outer  or  to  the  inner  sensibility,  as  simple  recep- 
tivity of  impressions  from  objects  of  experience;  for  it  is 
a  universal  act  of  the  determining  subject,  not  a  unitary 
representation  of  the  subject  determined  as  its  own  object. 
The  latter  is  empirical  self-consciousness  or  "empirical 
apperception."  But  the  former  is  rational  self-conscious- 
ness or  "pure  apperception;"  it  is,  likewise,  "original 
apperception,"  "since  it  is  that  self-consciousness  which, 
just  because  it  produces  the  representation  /  think  that 
must  accompany  all  other  representations,  and  just  because 
it  is  one  and  the  same  in  every  conscious  state,  can  be 
accompanied  by  no  representation  beyond  itself,"  that  is, 
as  its  own  condition.  In  other  words,  the  omnipresent  / 
think  is  the  "  original  "  or  "  spontaneous  act "  of  that  purely 
rational  self-consciousness  which  conditions  every  act  or 
state  of  the  empirical  conciousness ;   which  is  immanent 

1  "Combination"  is  Verbuutimg,  conjunctio,  or  syjithesis  a  priori,  as  a 
"putting  together."     Kant  selects  this  name,  as  he  says,  "in  order  to 
emphasize  the  facts  that  we  can  represent  to  ourselves  no  elements  as  com- 
bined in  the  object,  unless  we  have  ourselves  previously  combined  them, 
and  that  of  all  representations  comhination  [/.  e.  relation]  is  the  only  one 
which  cannot  be  given  through  objects,  —  that  it  can  be  brought  about  by 
the  subject  alone,  because  it  is  an  act  of  the  subject's  self-activity."    This 
is  to  teach  in  the  clearest  and  most  emphatic  manner  the  principle  of  the 
exclusive  subjectivity  of  relations.     Of  course,  if  relations  do  not  inhere 
in  the  objects  related,  but  are  imposed  upon  these  by  the  relating  subject, 
there  is  absolutely  nothing  to  know  but  the  subject  itself  and  its  modes  of 
spontaneity.     The  necessary  logical  consequence  of  this  denial  of  the  objec- 
tivity of  relations  is  absolute  solipsism  —  which  is  avoided  merely  by  that 
unreflective  or  vnlvr  kind  of  philosophizing  which  is  comfortably  indiffer- 


ent  to  losic.     {Of.  Chap.  IX.). 
•7. 


VOL.   I. 


98 


THE   SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


and  unchangeable  in  each  of  these  acts  or  states  (in  alletn 
Bewusstsein  ein  und  dasselhe  ist)  as  their  constant  common 
element;  and  which  itself  is  conditioned  by  no  act  beyond 
itself.  It  is  that  unconditioned  or  unoriginated  unity  of 
self-consciousness  which  antedates  and  transcends  all  ex- 
perience, and  constitutes  the  source  of  all  pure  knowledge 
a  priori;  for  the  diverse  representations  which  are  given 
in  a  particular  intuition  would  not  in  their  totality  be  wy 
representations  at  all,  unless  in  their  totality  they  belonged 
to  one  self-consciousness.  That  is,  as  my  representations, 
whether  I  am  conscious  of  them  or  not  as  mine,  they  must 
necessarily  conform  to  the  condition  under  which  alone 
they  can  stand  together  in  a  tiniversal  se/f-consciotisness, 
because  otherwise  they  would  not,  whether  singly  or  all 
together,  belong  to  me.  I  therefore  call  the  unity  of  this 
pure,  spontaneous,  and  original  apperception  the  "tran- 
scendental unity  of  self-consciousness,"  because  it  tran- 
scends experience  and  is  the  source  of  knowledge  a  priori 
—  that  is,  knowledge  independent  of  all  experience. 

III.    The  empirical  consciousness  is  simply  of  particular 
or  single  states,  fragmentary,  isolated,  and  disconnected; 
there  is  no  real  connection  whatever  among  these  single 
states  as  such,  because  the  empirical  consciousness  in  each 
of  them  contains  no  reference  whatever  to  the  identity  of 
the  subject.     This  reference  arises,  not  because  I  accom- 
pany  every  representation  with  consciousness  of  it,  but 
because  /  add  one  to  another  and  am  conscious  of  what  I 
do.     The  universal  or  purely  rational  self-consciousness  is 
that  "act"  of  "synthesis"  by  which  I  join  one  conscious 
state  to  another  and  am  conscious  of  joining  them.     Solely 
through  the  fact  that  I  am  able  in  this  way  to  combine  a 
diversity  of  given  conscious  states  in  one  consciousness, 
does  it  become  possible  for  me  to  conceive  the  "identity 
of  consciousness"  in  a  connected  series  of  conscious  states. 
Hence  the  "  synthetical  unity  of  apperception  "  conditions 
the  analytical  unity  of  apperception;  it  is  the  work  of  the 
understanding,  nay,  the  understanding  itself,  as  the  faculty 


THE  I:    EMPIRICAL,  RATIONAL,   REAL 


99 


of  conjoining  and  uniting  a  priori  a  multitude  of  given 
conscious  states  which  in  themselves  are  disjoined  and  dis- 
united. In  short,  it  is  the  relating  activity  in  which  all 
relations  originate,  and,  therefore,  "the  highest  principle 
in  all  human  knowledge." 

IV.  In  the  "synthetical  unity  of  apperception,"  which 
transcends  all  actual  or  possible  experience,  I  am  conscious 
of  myself  neither  as  a  noumenon  nor  as  a  phaenomenon, 
but  simply  as  a  pure  and  empty  existence  — -  "I  am."  This 
representation  {Vorstellung),  this  formal,  contentless,  and 
objectless  thought  (ein  Gedanke  der  Form  nach,  aher  ohne 
alien  Gegenstand),  is  an  act  of  pure  reason  {ein  Denken), 
not  an  act  of  empirical  intuition  (ein  Anschauen).  Since, 
however,  both  of  these  acts  are  necessary  to  knowledge  of 
ourselves  (Erkenntniss  unserer  selhst),  my  purely  rational 
I  remains  unknown;  only  my  empirical  I  is  known,  as 
determined  by  intuition  of  particular  conscious  states.  "  I 
have  no  knowledge  of  myself  as  I  am,  but  merely  as  I 
appear  to  myself.  The  consciousness  of  one's  Self,  there- 
fore, is  very  far  from  being  knowledge  of  one's  Self." 
"Now  by  this  I,  or  He,  or  It,  the  thing  which  thinks, 
nothing  more  is  represented  than  a  transcendental  or  non- 
empirical  subject  of  thoughts,  an  unknown  x,  —unknown 
that  is,  except  by  means  of  the  thoughts  which  are  its 
predicates.  Apart  from  these  thoughts  we  never  have  the 
least  conception  of  it.  Yet  we  revolve  about  it  in  a  con- 
stant circle,  since  we  are  compelled  to  use  it  in  making 
any  judgment  concerning  it."  Consequently,  in  the  / 
thinks  "the  concept  of  a  subject  is  taken  in  a  purely 
logical  sense,  and  it  remains  undetermined  whether  sub- 
stance is,  or  is  not,  to  be  understood  by  it  (so  ist  der 
Begriff  eines  Subjects  hier  bios  logisch  genommen^  und  es 
bleiht  unbestimmtj  ob  darunter  Substanz  verstanden  werden 
solle  oder  niclit)."  * 

V.    Consequently,  the  /  think,  which  is  "the  only  text 
of  rational  psychology,"  can  contain,  if  applied  to  my  Self 

1  Kritik  der  reinen  Vernunft,  Werke,  IlL  285,  etl.  Hart. 


100 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


as  an  object,  nothing  but  non-empirical  predicates  of  it, 
since  "the  least  empirical  predicate  would  destroy  the 
rational  purity  of  the  science  and  its  independence  of  all 
experience."  But  it  follows  from  this  that  "there  is  no 
rational  psychology,  as  a  doctrine  which  would  furnish  an 
addition  to  the  knowledge  of  our  Selves,  but  only  as  a 
discipline  which  sets  impassable  limits  to  speculative  rea- 
son in  this  field; "  and  that  "rational  psychology  originates 
in  a  mere  misunderstanding."^ 

§  57.  Let  us  inquire,  then,  whether  this  attempted  con- 
cept of  a  purely  rational  I  proves  to  be  any  more  thinkable 
than  Hume's  attempted  concept  of  a  purely  empirical  I. 

If,  adopting  Kant's  own  expressions,  we  denote  by  "x" 
the  unknown  "I,  or  He,  or  It,  the  *  thing  which  thinks; ' " 
and  if  we  denote  by  A,  B,  C,  D,  E  .  .  .  the  "succession 
of  perceptions,"  or  series  of  conscious  states  which  together 
compose  the  consciousness  of  the  purely  empirical  Ego, 
then  the  two  conceptions  of  Hume  and  of  Kant  may  be 
thus  expressed  in  equations:  — 

Hume 

(1)  The  Purely  Empirical  Ego  =  A  +  B-fC  +  D+E... 

(2)  The  Purely  Rational  Ego    =  0. 

Kant 

(3)  The  (mixed)  Empirical  Ego  =  a:A  -f  a:B  +  a:C  +  xD  +  xE 

r..     rm.      ^  =  ^T  (A  +  B  +  C  +  D  +  E.    .    .'  )   ^ 

(4)  The  Purely  Rational  Ego      =  x. 

According  to  Kant,  therefore,  the  "synthetical  unity  of 
apperception "  or  "  transcendental  unity  of  self-conscious- 

1  Kritik  derreinen  Vernunft,  Werke,  IH.  114  131,  273-288,  ed.  Hart 
On  the  other  hand  how  could)  Kant  refute  this  arffinmiitam  mi  hominem'f 
Whatever  really  acts  is  real  substance  ;  the  pure  I  really  acts  in  the  tran- 
scendental  synthesis  of  all  states  of  the  empirical  consciousness,  and  in  all 
combination  of  the  manifold  in  inner  or  outer  phaenomena  ;  therefore, 
the  pure  I  is  a  real  substance,  and  not,  as  above  declared,  a  mere  lomcal 
subject.  ** 


THE  I:    EMPIRICAL,  RATIONAL,  REAL 


101 


ness,"  which  is  the  only  identity  or  unity  of  the  Self 
recognized  by  him  at  all,  consists,  not  in  any  real  unity  or 
real  connection  of  the  conscious  states  per  se,  but  solely  in 
the  transcendental  or  non-empirical "  synthesis  "  —  that  is, 
in  the  subjective  relation  of  unity  artificially  bestowed, 
or  conferred,  or  imposed  upon  them  from  without  by  the 
purely  rational  I,  which  (in  what  is  in  truth  a  merely 
mechanical  fashion)  unites  them  as  disconnected  beads  by 
a  connecting  string.  These  beads  of  the  empirical  con- 
sciousness, A,  B,  C,  D,  E,  whether  separate  or  strung, 
contain  in  themselves  no  consciousness  of  the  Self;  the 
string  of  the  rational  Ego,  x,  holds  them  together  as  a 
series  of  conscious  states,  but  all  the  self-consciousness  is 
in  the  string  itself.  We  must  look,  then,  to  the  rational 
string  alone,  separated  from  all  the  empirical  beads,  to 
discover  the  unity  of  the  Self,  the  purely  rational  I.  What 
is  this  string? 

The  answer  to  this  question  depends  unconditionally  on 
what  Kant  meant  by  the  *'  inner  sensibility,"  *'  inner  sense," 
or  **  inner  empirical  intuition,"  ^  by  which  alone  the  Ego 
can  take  cognizance  of  itself,  through  becoming  aware  of 
the  isolated  phaenomenal  states  which  it  is  its  own  sole 
function  to  join  together  in  one  self-consciousness.  Does 
he,  or  does  he  not,  ascribe  this  "  inner  empirical  intuition  " 
to  the  jmrely  rational  Ego  ? 

I.  If  he  does,  then  the  purely  rational  Ego,  intuiting 
A  as  well  as  x  in  the  compound  conscious  state  a;A,  —  that 

*  "  Der  Satz  aber :  ich  denke,  so  fern  er  so  viel  sagt,  als :  ich  cxistire 
denkend,  ist  nicht  bios  logische  Function,  sondern  bestimmt  das  Subject 
(welches  denn  zugleich  Object  ist)  in  Ansehung  der  Existenz,  und  kann 
ohne  den  inneren  Sinn  nicht  stattfinden,  dessen  Anschauung  jederzeit  das 
Object  nicht  als  Ding  an  sich  selbst,  sondern  bios  als  Erscheinung  an  die 
Hand  gibt" — "Welches  [d.  h.  sich  ala  Noumenon  zu  erkennen]  aber 
unmoglich  ist,  indem  die  innere  empirische  Anschauung  sinnlich  ist  und 
nichts  als  Data  der  Ei-scheinung  an  die  Hand  gibt,  die  dem  Objecte 
des  reinen  Bewusstseins  zur  Kenntniss  seiner  abgesonderten  Existenz 
nichts  liefem,  sondern  bios  der  Erfahrung  zum  Behufe  dienen  kann." 
(Werke,  III.  290,  291). 


I 


102 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


is,  ceasing  to  be  purely  rational  and  becoming  incontrover- 
tibly  empirical  as  well  as  rational,  —  vanishes  altogether. 

II.  But,  if  he  does  not,  then  the  purely  rational  Ego, 
taking  no  cognizance  whatever  of  the  separate  empirical 
states,  xA,  xB,  xC,  xJ),  xE  .  .  .  cannot  possibly  combine 
them  into  one  series,  confer  its  own  unity  upon  them,  or 
in  any  way  bring  them  under  the  "synthetical  unity  of 
apperception."  Discerning  nothing  whatever  to  combine 
or  relate  or  synthesize,  it  remains  utterly  incapable  of  that 
"spontaneous  act"  of  "synthesis"  which  constitutes  its 
only  being  or  function.  If  it  cannot  intuite  A,  B,  C,  D, 
E,  it  cannot  combine  jc  with  A  in  one  term,  or  icA,  a-B,  xC 
...  in  one  series. of  terms.  If  it  is  absolutely  blind  to  the 
terms,  it  is  incapable  of  relating  them  in  a  judgment.  Again, 
therefore,  the  purely  rational  Ego  vanishes  altogether. 

In  either  case,  consequently,  the  string  of  pure  reason 
which  was  to  connect  the  otherwise  disconnected  beads  of 
experience,  yet  was  to  be  conceived  as  a  purely  rational 
Ego,  turns  out  to  be  a  pure  myth.  The  Ego  cannot  at  one 
and  the  same  time  be  purely  rational  and  yet  partly  em- 
pirical. Yet  the  purely  rational  Ego,  by  Kant's  own 
showing,  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  as  the  "  synthetical 
unity  of  apperception,"  unless  it  is  at  the  same  time  partly 
empirical,  as  "  intuition  "  of  conscious  states  to  be  synthe- 
sized. Clearly  there  neither  is  nor  can  be  any  such  "white 
blackbird  "  in  the  constitution  of  the  human  mind.^    Kant's 

*  This  internal  collapse  of  Kant's  theory  of  a  purely  rational  Ego,  or 
"pure  consciousness,"  betrays  itself  in  Kuno  Fischer's  inevitably  contra- 
dictory summary  of  it  :  **Das  empirische  Bewusstsein  ist  so  wechselud 
und  verschieden,  wie  die  menschlichen  Individuen  ;  das  reine  Bewusstsein 
ist  identisch,  unwandelbar  und  darum  in  jedem  dasselbe.  Was  dieses 
Bewusstsein  vorstellt  oder  verkniipft,  gilt  daher  fiir  alle,  d.  h.  es  hat  den 
Charakter  allgemeiner  und  iiothwcjidiger  oder  ohjectiver  Geltung.  Erst 
dadurch  kommt  in  unsere  Ercheinungen  und  Wahmehnmngen  Objectivitat, 
d.  h.  sie  werden  Erfahrungsobjecte  und  Erfahrungsurtheile.  Nun  ist  das 
reine  Bewusstsein  nicht  receptiv,  sondem  thiitig  und  productiv,  es  verhalt 
sich  nicht  empfindend  oder  stoffempfangend,  sondem  bios  verkniipfend 
oder  formgebend,  es  verhalt  sich  in  seiner  Formgebung  nicht  anschauend. 


THE  I:    EMPIRICAL,  RATIONAL,  REAL 


103 


concept  proves  to  be  absolutely  as  unthinkable  as  Hume's, 
for  no  genius,  however  superb,  can  think  the  self-contra- 

sondern  denkend  oder  urtheilend ;  daher  sind  die  Formen,  die  es  giebt, 
Urtheilsformen  oder  Kategorien  ;  daher  sind  es  die  reiuen  Verstandes- 
functionen  oder  die  reinen  BegrifTe,  welehe  die  Erfahrungsobjecte  be- 
griinden  ;  sie  niachen  die  Erfahrung  und  gelten  deshalb,  so  weit  dieselbe 
reicht.  Dies  war  der  zu  beweiseude  Punkt,  das  Thema  der  Frage,  die  jetzt 
gelost  ist."    (Geschichte  der  neuern  Philosophic,  III.  368.) 

Here  we  see  the  "  pure  consciousness"  explained  as  at  once  capable  and 
incapable  of  '*  inner  empirical  intuition."     (1)  On  the  one  hand  "this  con- 
sciousness presents  (vorstellt)  or  combines  (verkniipft)  ;  "  and,  because  it  is 
identical  and  unchangeable  in  each  of  us,  — because,  that  is,  it  is  a  whole 
universal  inhering  inimanently  in  each  and  every  whole  individual  sub- 
sumed under  it,  — whatever  it  "presents  or  combines  "  in  one  empirical 
consciousness    must  be  "presented  or  combined"   in  all   empirical  con- 
sciousnesses.    Its  entire  and  sole  function  is  to  be  "active  and  productive," 
"combining  or  form-giving,"  "thinking  or  judging."     Consequently,  its 
whole  essence  is  to  act,  ])roduce,  combine,  give  form,  — to  judge,  and  there- 
fore of  necessity  to  present,  i»erceive,  or  intuite  the  particular  subject  and 
predicate  of  which  the  judgment  consists,  —  in  general,  to  relate,  and  there- 
fore, since  not  to  perceive  what  it  relates  would  be  simply  not  to  think  the 
relation  at  all,  to  present  or  intuite  tfie  particular  terms  related.    But  this  is 
Vorsfellung  as  "inner empirical  intuition,"  and  the  "  pure  consciousness" 
ceases  thereby  to  be  "  pure."    (2)  On  the  other  hand,  the  "  pure  conscious- 
ness "is  "not  receptive,"   "not  sensitive  or  capable  of  receiving  sense- 
material,"  "  not  intuitive  "  at  all.    It  can  "present  "  {vorstellen)  nothing 
whatever  as  a   unit-object   of   thought;    it   can   take   cognizance  of  no 
mere  unit  as  such,   for  instance,   a  conscious  state  xA  ;  it  cannot  per- 
ceive  or  intuite  the  particular  subject  and  predicate  of  any  judgment, 
or  the  particular  terms  of  any  relation  ;  it  can  only  combine,  or  judge, 
or  relate,  wfiat  it  can  not  perceive  at  all  f    This  "pure  consciousness"  is 
certainly  "pure,"  but  only  as  pure  zero  ;  it  is  pure  form  without  matter, 
and,  whatever  its  "necessary  and  universal  or  objective  validity"  may  be, 
it  can  have  absolutely  nothing  to  do  with  "experience."     (3)  The  only 
escape  from  this  destructive  contradiction  in  the  very  heart  of  the  Kantian 
theory  is  to  abandon  the  theory  altogether ;  to  admit  that  Anschauung 
and  Begriff  are  absolutely  inseparable,  and  can  not  even  be  thought  as 
**  pure  ;"  to  admit  that  Sinnlichkeit  and  Verstandy  experience  and  reason, 
apprehension  of  units  and  comprehension  of  universals,  are  necessarily 
identical  in  diflFerence  ;  and  to  renounce,  as  a  wild  and  exposed  delusion, 
the  epistemology  which  builds  on  the  possibility  of  "pure  concepts," 
"pure  knowledge  a  priori"  or   "pure  rational  consciousness."      The 


104 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


dictory.     Its  source,  however,  is  obvious.     Kant's  attempt 
to  separate  reason  from  experience,  the  rational  I  from  the 

Kantian  Erkenntnisslehre  is  a  superb  construction  of  inventive  specula- 
tive genius,  but  it  is  a  statue  of  gold  with  feet  of  clay. 

Kant  himself,  however,  sought  to  escape  from  the  above  dilemma  by 
means  of  "  productive  imagination."  This  he  conceived  as  *'an  operation 
of  the  understanding  on  the  sensibility"  (in  his  own  words,  "eine  Wir- 
kung  des  Verstandes  auf  die  Sinnlichkeit,")  and  interposed  it  as  a  medi- 
ator between  the  purely  rational  Ego  and  the  world  of  empirical  intuitions, 
—  as  a  faculty  at  once  intellectual  and  sensuous,  whose  function  it  is  (1)  to 
reproduce  these  intuitions  in  a  synUiesis  speciosa^  (2)  to  carry  into  effect 
unconsciously  the  laws  of  the  understanding,  and  (3)  to  combine  or  relate 
phaenomena  according  to  these  laws  in  a  synthesis  iiUelledualis.  Fischer 
thus  states  the  theory  for  Kant  in  brief:  **Die  sinulichen  Objecte,  die 
das  Bewusstsein  vorfindet,  sind  ein  Werk  der  sinulichen,  die  gegebenen 
Vorstellungselemente  componirenden  Einbildungskraft ;  die  Einheit  und 
Ordnung,  die  aus  jenen  Objecten  einleuchten,  sind  das  Werk  der  intel- 
lectuellen,  vom  Verstande  durchdrungenen  Einbildungskraft.  Die  ge- 
meinsame  Sinnenwelt,  die  dem  Bewusstsein  als  eine  gegebene  ei-scheiut,  ist 
ihra  durch  die  Einbildungskraft  gegebeu,  welcho  bewusstlos  die  Gesetze 
ausfiihrt,  die  der  Verstand  giebt,  und  die  Erscheinungen  so  verkniiplt, 
wie  es  das  reine  Bewusstsein  fordert :  daher  das  letztei-e  seine  Formen 
(Kategorien),  nach  welchen  die  Einbildungskraft  die  Ersch«*inungen  ver- 
kniipft  hat,  in  dieser  nicht  bios  erkennt,  sondern  wicikrerkennt."  {Ibid. 
IIL  373.) 

Now  what  do  these  "laws  of  the  understanding "  prescribe  ?  Nothing 
but  various  modes  of  cmnbination  of  particulars.  The  i)articulars,  as  units, 
can  be  known  only  by  outer  or  inner  empirical  intuition,  and  the  modes 
of  combination,  as  universals,  only  by  reason.  This  distinction  in  the 
nature  of  the  objects  known  is  necessarily,  even  for  Kant,  the  only  assign- 
able ground  for  his  own  distinction  and  separation  of  the  sensibility  and 
the  understanding,  as  fundamentally  unlike  faculties  of  the  mind.  Be- 
cause, then,  the  understanding  can  not  perceive  or  intuite  particulars,  and 
the  sensibility  cannot  think  or  originate  combinations,  and  because  these 
two  faculties  must  be  not  only  different  in  their  nature  but  also  separate 
in  their  action,  Kant  could  conceive  no  way  for  them  to  co-operate  except 
through  the  mediation  of  a  third  faculty,  the  "productive  imagination," 
which  should  partake  of  the  nature  of  both  — that  is,  which  should 
(1)  consciously  perceive  particulars,  yet  (2)  unconsciously  (bevmsstlos) 
combine  them  as  the  laws  of  the  understanding  require.  Unfortunately, 
the  absurdity  which  was  to  be  avoided  by  this  device  forces  itself  here 
into  view  as  obstinately  as  before.    Whatever  thinks  or  prescribes  "laws  " 


THE  I:    EMPIRICAL,  RATIONAL,   REAL 


106 


empirical  consciousness,  sprang  from  the  mistaken  presup- 
position that  it  is  possible  to  think  a  universal  without 
any  units.  This  presupposition,  in  turn,  sprang  from  an 
unscientific  theory  of  universals :  namely,  that  the  univer- 
sal wholly  inheres  in  the  individual  and  can  be  wholly 
abstracted  from  the  individual,  while  the  individual  is 
only  "  subsumed  "  under  the  universal.  That  Kant  built 
on  this  merely  inherited  theory  of  the  Aristotelian  Paradox 
appears  very  plainly  above  in  equation  (3),  where  x,  the 
universal,  wholly  inheres  in  each  and  every  term  as  their 
common  element,  and  in  equation  (4),  where  x  is  abstracted 
and  retained  alone.  In  this  way,  h*s  purely  rational  I 
became  necessarily  a  mere  "logical  subject"  of  which 
" substance  "  may  or  may  not  be  predicated;  while  yet  it 
is  certain  that  a  mere  "logical  subject"  which  7nai/  not  be 
*'substa7ice"  and  hence  viat/  not  " act^^  at  all,  cannot  possi- 
bly perform  that  "spontaneous  act  of  synthesis"  which  is 
its  sole  and  necessary  function  in  the  "synthetical  unity  of 

for  the  combination  of  particulars  must  be  aware  of  the  particulars  to  be 
combined:  the  "pure  consciousness"  must  intuite  them,  or  it  can  not 
legislate  how  to  combine  them,  much  less  impart  to  the  "productive 
imagination"  even  an  "unconscious"  knowledge  how  to  combine  them. 
On  the  one  hand,  how  can  "laws  of  combination "  be  even  mediately  pre- 
scribed for  particulars  by  a  consciousness  which  cannot  jKjrceive  them  at 
all  ?  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  how  can  a  consciousness  which  perceives 
them  be  non-empirical  or  pure  ?  The  conception  of  a  pure  rational  con- 
sciousness legislating  a  priori  for  empirical  consciousness  is  simply  self- 
destructive.     The  conception  is  not  in  the  least  helped  by  dividing  it 

by  making  the  "pure  consciousness"  conscious  of  the  laws  but  uncon- 
scious of  the  particulars,  and  inventing  a  "pure  imagination"  conscious 
of  the  particulars  but  unconscious  of  the  laws  ;  for  in  this  case  a  fourth 
faculty  must  be  invented  to  mediate  between  the  "  pure  consciousness " 
and  the  "pure  imagination,"  and  so  on  forever.  The  case  is  a  hopeless 
one.  But  Fischer  makes  unwittingly  a  vast  concession.  If  the  sensuous 
"  imagination  "  can  become  "  intellectual "  in  virtue  of  "  being  penetrated 
by  the  understanding,"  so  can  tJie  sensibility  in  general.  But  reciprocal 
interpenetration  of  the  sensibility  and  the  understanding  is  nothing  but 
the  identity  in  difference  of  experience  and  reason,  —  the  impossibility, 
therefore,  of  "pure  knowledge  a  priori,'* 


106 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


apperception."  If  it  does  -act-  it  must  he  -suhstamer^ 
If  It  does  not  ''act;'  what  becomes  of  Kant's  "highest  prin- 
ciple of  all  human  knowledge"  as  a  combining,  relating,  or 
active  "  faculty  "  ?  ^ 

In  fine,  the  purely  empirical  I  and  the  purely  rational  I 
are  but  two  forms  of  the  unreal  L  The  necessity  of  such 
a  concept  of  the  real  I  as  shall  not,  like  the  concepts  of 
these  merely  imaginary  entities,  totally  ignore  the  ques- 
tions of  real  origin,  real  form,  and  real  kind,  must  surely 
force  Itself  upon  all  sagacious  thinkers. 

§  ^.  The  concrete  or  real  I,  as  opposed  to  both  forms 
ot  the  abstract  or  unreal  I,  unites  in  itself  both  the  "  suc- 
cession of  perceptions"  and  the  "synthetical  unity  of  ap- 
perception," ^  both  the  empirical  consciousness  and  the 

Un  adopting  above  Kant's  phrase,  the  -synthetical  unity  of  apper- 
ception,    as  an  expression  for  the  real  universality  of  self.conscioiisne.ss.  it 
IS  necessary  to  point  out  distinctly  that  this  is  done  with  reservation   and 
m  order  snuply  to  avoid  embarrassing  neologisms.     Kant  means  by  the 
phrase  that  iKimdoxical  -spontaneous  act  "  of  the  unknwwn,  ahslrad,  a,ui 
tra,,scemlental  subject  {bios  loglsch  genommcn)  whicli  is  the  absolute  origin 
of  all     combination  of  the  manifold  "  in  every  i»ossible  object  of  knowleLe 
-  the  exclusively  subjective  origin,  therefore,  of  all  relation  as  such.     As 
adopted  above,  however,  the  phrase  means  that  spontaneous  activity  of  the 
known    concrete,  ami  immanent  s«// which  makes  it  (1)  the  percipient  of 
combination  of  the  manifold  "in  the  immanent  n3lational  constitutions 
of  real  olyects  of  knowledge,  (2)  the  recipient  of  that  "  combination  of  the 
manifold    m  the  reproducing  concept  of  it,  and  (3)  the  origin  of  re-combi- 
nation  of  the  manifold  in  hypothetical  anticipations  of  possible  objects  of 
knowledge -not.  therefore,  the  subjective  origin  of  all  relation  as  such. 
That  IS,  Kant  would  determine  the  whole  "succession  of  perceptions" 
as  solely  the  work  of  the  human  mind,  through  its  spontaneously  re- 
lating  activity  as  the  "synthetical   unity  of  apiK^rception  ; "   while  we 
would  determine  the  "succession  of  perceptions"  as  partly  the  work  of 
the  human  mmd  and  partly  the  work  of  the  world  (§§  65,  72,  5)  and 
determine  the  "synthetical  unity  of  apperception  "  as  the  elabomtion  of 
percept^concepts  in  the  unity  of  one  self-consciousness.     These  are  impor- 
tant  difrerences,  since  Kant's  notion  results  from  the  principle  of  the  ex- 
clusively subjective  origin  of  conceptual  relations,  while  ours  results  from 
that  of  the  combined  subjective  and  objective  origin  of  conceptual  rela- 
tions.    Yet  there  is  a  sufficient  likeness  in  the  two  notions  to  justify 


THE  I:    EMPIRICAL,  RATIONAL,  REAL 


107 


rational  self -consciousness,  both  experience  and  reason,  in 
the  indivisible  identity  of  the  knowing  I.  Neither  the 
purely  empirical  I  nor  the  purely  rational  I  can  know;  if 
alone,  they  are  nothing  but  empty  abstractions,  incapable 
of  real  knowledge.  The  real  I  alone,  the  I  that  feels  and 
wills  and  knows,  is  the  seat  of  all  real  or  possible  knowl- 
edge (§  99,  III). 

On  the  one  hand,  considered  as  to  its  origin,  all  real 
knowledge  springs  out  of  an  active  double-functioning  of 
the  real  I,  (1)  as  experience  or  perception  of  units,  and  (2) 
as  reason  or  conception  of  universals;  and  these  two  com- 
plementary or  reciprocally  conditioning  functions  inter- 
penetrate each  other  inseparably  in  every  real  act  of 
knowledge,  because  every  real  or  conceivable  object  of 
knowledge  is  at  once  a  universal  to  its  own  constituent 
units  and  a  constituent  unit  to.  its  own  universal  —  some 
kind  of  tiling^  or  thing  of  some  kind  (§  23).  On  the  other 
hand,  considered  as  to  its  form,  all  real  knowledge  exists 
as  the  percept-concept  of  some  kind  of  thing.  Whatever  is 
known,  however,  must  be  known  as  it  is— -cannot  be  known 
as  it  is  notj  if  it  is  really  known  by  me  at  all,  it  must  be 
known  in  accordance  with  its  own  real  nature  no  less  than 
in  accordance  with  mine.  Hence,  if  "human  knowledge 
exists,"  the  double -constitution  of  the  object  of  knowledge, 
as  at  once  unit  and  universal,  necessarily  determines  the 
double-functioning  of  the  knowing  I  as  experience  and 
reason,  and  thereby  gives  its  necessary  form  to  the  per- 
cept-concept, in  which,  as  at  once  empirical  and  rational, 
the  double-constitution  of  the  object  reappears  as  its  own 
double-constitution.  Thus  the  real  I,  empirical  in  the 
perception  of  units  or  facts,  rational  in  the  conception  of 
universals  or  principles,  and  simultaneously  active  or  real 
in  both  functions,  kiiows^  or  becomes  the  knowing  /,  by 
reproducing  in  the  concept,  as  at  once  a  unit  and  a  univer- 

retention  of  Kant's  phrase,  provided  these  differences  are  kept  well  in 
mind;  for  they  both  recognize  that  universaUty  of  self-consciousness 
which  the  phrase  was  devised  to  express. 


108 


TUE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  I:    EMPIRICAL,  RATIONAL,  REAL 


109 


sal  in  Thought,  the  double-constitution  of  the  object  of 
knowledge,  as  at  once  a  unit  and  a  universal  in  Being. 
For  thus  alone  is  attainable  that  agreement  between  the 
concept  and  its  object,  that  essential  identity  in  the 
numerical  difference  of  their  two  immanent  relational 
constitutions,  in  which  alone  consists  truth  (§  50,  with 
footnotes).  Briefly,  the  double-constitution  of  every  real 
object  of  knowledge,  as  both  unit  and  universal  (thing  of 
some  kind,  some  kind  of  thing),  determines  the  double- 
constitution  of  the  knowing  process  itself,  as  both  experi- 
ence and  reason  (perception  of  things  and  conception  of 
kinds);  while  this  double-constitution  of  the  knowing 
process  itself  determines  the  double-constitution  of  its 
product,  as  true  thought  (percept-concept  in  agreement 
with  the  object).  Or,  viewed  more  profoundly  still,  the 
nature  of  Being,  as  identity  of  unity  and  universality  in 
the  object  (§  36),  determines  the  nature  of  Knowing,  as 
identity  of  experience  and  reason  in  the  subject,  and 
througli  this  the  nature  of  Knowledge  or  True  Thought, 
as  identity  of  unity  and  universality  in  the  concept. 

In  order,  therefore,  that  the  concept  of  the  real  I  may 
be  true  thought  or  knowledge,  it  is  necessary  that  the  real 
I  itself  shall  be  the  real  identity  of  subject  and  object  — 
that  is,  shall  be  a  real  object  of  knowledge  to  itself,  as  a 
real  subject  of  knowledge.  Like  every  possible  object  of 
knowledge,  the  real  I,  as  object,  must  be  a  thing  of  some 
kind,  that  is,  must  be  both  a  unit  and  a  universal;  it  must, 
as  a  unit,  be  known  by  experience,  and  it  must,  as  a  uni- 
versal, be  known  by  reason;  and  the  concept  of  it  must, 
like  every  true  concept,  be  both  empirical  and  rational  at 
the  same  time,  that  is,  a  percept-concept.  Since,  more- 
over, in  all  real  self-consciousness,  the  I  that  is  known  is 
itself  the  I  that  knows,  the  known  constitution  of  the  I  as 
object  must  be  identical  with  the  constitution  of  the  I  as 
subject,  which,  therefore,  must  be  equally  known;  other- 
wise, there  is  no  identity  of  subject  and  object,  no  agree- 
ment of  object  and  concept,  no  truth,  no  knowledge  of  self, 


no  self-consciousness  at  all.  But  this  is  absurd.  Hence, 
whether  considered  as  object  or  as  subject,  the  real  I  is  at 
once  empirical  and  rational ;  and  the  judgment  of  real  self- 
consciqusness,  "I  know  myself  in  each  and  all  of  my  con- 
scious states,"  which  unites  in  itself  both  the  "succession 
of  perceptions"  and  the  "synthetical  unity  of  appercep- 
tion," is  so  far  the  concept  of  the  real  I.  If  the  "I,"  as 
rational  subject,  and  the  "myself  in  each  and  all  of  my 
conscious  states,"  as  empirical  object,  were  not  identical 
in  difference  (through  the  necessary  identity  in  difference 
of  experience  and  reason,  §  20),  then  it  would  follow  that 
the  judgment  of  real  self -consciousness  is  itself  altogether 
false,  since  it  falsely  affirms  that  identity  in  difference  of 
subject  and  object  in  which  all  self-consciousness  consists. 
The  unconditional  condition  of  all  real  self -consciousness, 
however,  is  that  the  "  I "  and  the  "  myself  in  each  and  all 
of  my  conscious  states  "  shall  be  at  once  identical  and  dif- 
ferent, universal  and  unitary,  rational  and  empirical.  The 
real  I  must  be,  not  a  mere  abstract  logical  subject  with  no 
object  at  all,  but  real  subject  and  real  object  at  once,  as 
real  in  their  identity  as  in  their  difference  and  in  their 
difference  as  in  their  identity.  In  other  words,  every  con- 
scious state  being  ipso  facto  an  act  of  knowledge,  the  real 
I,  as  a  universal  activity,  inheres  really  in  all  its  own 
conscious  acts,  as  the  self-related  totality  of  all  its  own 
units;  and  its  real  identity  as  subject-object  consists  so 
far  in  this  real  universality  —  that  is,  in  this  universally 
self-percipient  or  self-conscious  energy  of  the  Self,  as  (1) 
immanent  in  all  its  conscious  acts  as  a  whole,  and  (2)  both 
immanent  and  transcendent  in  each  of  its  conscious  acts  as 
a  part.  And  this  self-knowing  energy,  this  identity  in 
difference  of  subject  and  object  in  the  Self,  is  the  necessary 
principle  of  all  real  Self-Consciousness. 

§  59.  But  the  concept  of  the  real  I  would  remain  fatally 
defective,  if  this  were  all.  It  would  give  the  self  as  a 
universal,  but  not  as  a  unit.  It  would  give  the  univer- 
sality of  the  self  as  real  identity  of  subject  and  object  in 


110 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


each  and  all  of  its  own  conscious  states,  but  would  not 
give  this  universal  subject-object  as  a  thing  of  any  kind. 
It  would  fail,  therefore,  to  give  the  self  as  a  real  object  of 
knowledge,  since,  as  we  have  seen,  every  real  object  of 
knowledge  must  be  constituted  as  both  universal  and  unit  at 
once  —  must  be  not  only  a  universal  to  its  own  constituent 

units,  but  also  a  constituent  unit  to  its  own  universal, 

must  be  not  only  some  kind  of  thing,  but  also  a  thing  of 
some  kind.     The  real  I,  however,  if  it  can  be  at  all  an 
object  of  knowledge  to  itself,  must  fulfil  the  conditions 
determining  every  such  object,  and  be  individualized   as 
well  as  universalized.     The  concept  of  self-consciousness, 
tliorefore,  which,  as  the  '*  synthetical  unity  of  apperception/' 
unites  the  "succession  of  perceptions"  in  an  indeterminate 
series,  but  which  is  quite  incapable  of  determining  this  as 
a  unit  in  any  other  than  the  vague,  abstract,  and  merely 
general  aspect  of  "a  series  "  or  "a  succession,"  gives  indeed 
yie  real  universality  of  the  suhjcct'ohject,  but  cannot  possi- 
bly give  its  real  unity  as  a  real  /,  unless  it  is  complemented, 
completed,  and  rounded  out  by  the  concept  of  race-con- 
sciousnessy  which  alone  can  give  the  subject-object  as  one 
of  a  kind  (§§  68,  69).     Recognizing,  then,  this  indispen- 
sable race-consciousness  — this  indispensable  complement 
of  the  "  synthetical  unity  of  apperception  "  which  alone  can 
give  it  real  unity  in  itself,  and  by  which  alone  the  concept 
of  the  real  I  can  be  brought  into  that  necessary  agreement 
with  its  object  which  constitutes  its  truth  —  as  the  Generic 
Unity  of  Apperception,  it  becomes  clear  that  I  do  not 
know  myself  at  all  as  a  real  Self,  a  real  I,  a  real  Person, 
until   I  know  myself,   not  merely  as  the   indeterminate 
universality  of  a  series  of  conscious  states,  but  also  as  a 
determined  unit  in  a  higher  universal:  namely,  as  One  of 
the   We,     And  the  judgment  of  all  real  race-consciousness 
will  be,  "I  know  myself  as  One  of  the  We."  ^ 

1  "  Das  Bewusstseyn  der  Individ nalitat  [i.  e.  real  unity  of  the  I]  ist 
nothwendig  von  einem  anderen  Bewusstseyn,  dem  eines  Dn,  begleitet,  und 
nur  unter  dieser  Bedingung  nioglich."    (Fichte,  Werke,  I.  476.) 


THE  I:    EMPIRICAL,  RATIONAL,  REAL 


111 


This  principle  of  the  generic  unity  of  apperception  as 
necessarily  complementing  the  "synthetical  unity  of  ap- 
perception," and  as  constituting  in  combination  with  this 
the  personal  unity  of  apperception,  or  principle  of  personal 
identity,  must  hold  a  commanding  position  in  the  philos- 
ophy of  philosophy;  for  it  is  the  very  foundation,  the 
necessary  condition,  of  the  history  of  philosophy  as  the 
work  of  personal  philosophers.  The  I  cannot  be  known  as 
a  real  unit  or  person,  unless  it  is  determined,  not  only  with 
reference  to  itself  as  subject-object,  but  no  less  with  refer- 
ence to  others  of  its  kind;  for  knowledge  of  the  thing  and 
knowledge  of  the  kind  are  one  and  the  same  knowledge  in 
every  true  thought,  as  that  union  of  percept  and  concept 
which  is  identity  in  difference  of  experience  and  reason, 
because  it  agrees  with  the  object  as  identity  in  difference 
of  unit  and  universal.  In  other  words,  the  real  I  must  be 
(1)  empirical  in  the  series  of  conscious  states,  (2)  rational 
in  the  universality  of  the  series,  and  (3)  real  in  the  uni- 
versality and  the  unity  of  the  series  as  a  whole.  Tlie  real 
unity  of  the  I,  as  personal  identity,  is  necessarily  both 
internal  and  external:  internal  as  the  "synthetical  unity 
of  apperception"  in  the  "succession  of  perceptions,"  and 
external  as  the  "  synthetical  unity  of  apperception  "  in  the 
generic  unity  of  apperception.  Its  internal  unity  is  its 
determination  as  a  universal  in  all  of  its  own  units,  and 
its  external  unity  is  its  determination  as  a  unit  in  its  own 
universal;  and  each  of  these  determinations  is  the  abso- 
lutely necessary  condition  of  the  other,  since  the  two 
together,  as  essential  factors,  are  necessary  to  determine 
the  I  as  a  real  unit,  whether  as  "  object  of  knowledge  "  or 
"subject  of  knowledge."  Hence  Kant's  failure  to  discover 
the  real  unity  of  the  I ,  or  to  conceive  "  the  I,  or  He,  or  It, 
the  thing  which  thinks,"  otherwise  than  as  a  mere  "un- 
known X "  which  can  never  become  an  "  object  of  knowl- 
edge," was  the  direct,  inevitable,  and  very  instructive 
consequence  of  his  failure  to  conceive  the  "synthetical 
unity  of  apperception  "  as  itself  conditioned  on  the  generic 


112 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  I:    EMPIRICAL,   RATIONAL,  REAL 


113 


unity  of  apperception;   for  the  identity  in  difference  of 
these  two,  being  the  condition  of  the  I's  real  unity  in 
itself,  is  the  very  condition  under  which  alone  the  I  could 
possibly  become  an  " object "  or  be  "  known ''  at  all.    Solely 
through  race-consciousness  could  the  vague  consciousness 
of  "  self  "  become  determined  and  unified  as  the  conscious- 
ness of  "a  self,"  or  take  the  necessary  form  of  "w//  self" 
as  opposed  to  "your  self,"  that  is,  as  a  constituent  unit 
with  other  constituent  units  in  the  higher  universality  of 
the  kind.     Self -consciousness  and  race-consciousness  recip- 
rocally condition  each  other,  as  the  two  essential  and 
inseparable  factors  of  all  personal  consciousness;  and  the 
concept  of  the  real  I  unites  them  in  itself  as  the  concept 
of  real  personality.     For,  while  the  I  is  a  universal  with 
respect  to  its  own  states  as  units,  it  cannot  be  a  unit  ex- 
cept with  respect  to  its  own  kind  as  its  universal ;  yet  it 
cannot  become  an  object  of  knowledge  at  all,  unless,  like 
every  such  object,  it  is  constituted  as  both  unit  and  uni- 
versal at  once.     Personal  consciousness  both  unifies  and 
universalizes  at  once  in  knowing  the  r«al  I  as  a  unit-uni- 
versal (the  thing)  in  a  higher  universal-unit  (the  kind), 
which  it  must  be  in  order  to  be  an  object  of  knowledge  at 
all.     The  generic  unity  of  apperception,  therefore,  is  itself 
the  identity  in  difference  of  experience  and  reason,  knowl- 
edge of  units  and   knowledge   of  universals.     Kant  saw 
only  the  principle  of  spoiitaneitij,  as   the   transcendental 
synthesis  of  self -consciousness,  but  wholly  disregarded  the 
correlative  principle  of  herediti/,  as  the  continuity  of  race- 
consciousness ;  but  the  necessary  result  of  this  one-sided- 
ness  was  to  lose  all  insight  into  the  intelligibility  of  the 
I  as  a  real  thing  or  unit  of  existence.     It  was  inevitable, 
therefore,  that  Kant  should  fail  to  derive  from  "pure  self- 
consciousness"  alone  any  concept  whatever  of  the  I  as 
"object;"   for  "pure  self-consciousness"  yields  only  the 
I's  universality,  not  its   unity,  which   must  be  found  in 
order  to  make  it  an  "object,"  yet  cannot  be  found  out  of 
its  kind. 


If,  then,  the  judgment  of  all  real  self-consciousness  is 
that  "I  know  myself  in  each  and  all  of  my  conscious 
states,"  and  if  the  judgment  of  all  real  race-consciousness 
is  that  "I  know  myself  as  One  of  the  We,"  then  the  judg- 
ment of  all  real  personal  consciousness,  or  real  personality, 
or  real  personal  identity,  will  be  that  "I  know  myself  in 
each  and  all  of  my  conscious  states  as  One  of  the  We." 
And  this,  accordingly,  is  the  concept  of  the  real  I,  or  per- 
son  as  such,  in  its  simplest  form  —  personality,  so  to 
speak,  reduced  to  its  lowest  terms;  for  in  it  are  united  the 
"succession  of  perceptions,"  the  "synthetical  unity  of  ap- 
perception," and  the  generic  unity  of  apperception^  in  a  form 
at  once  empirical,  rational,  and  personal. 

§  60.  Repeating  here,  for  convenience  of  comparison,  the 
table  in  §  57,  the  results  of  the  last  six  sections  may  be  set 
forth  succinctly  in  tabular  form,  as  follows :  — 

TABLE  I 
Hume 

I.   The  Purely  Empirical  Ego  =  A-}-B  +  C4-D  +  E 

II.    The  Purely  liational  Ego    =  0. 

Kant 

III.  The  (mixed)  Empirical  Ego  =  xA  +  xB  +  a:C  +  xD  +  xE  .  .  . 

=  x(A+B  +  C  +  D  +  E...) 

IV.  The  Purely  Rational  Ego    =  x, 

TABLE  II 
I.   Separation  of  Experience  and  Reason 

\kher  Purely  Empirical  Object  without  Rational 
Subject  — Mere  "Succession  of  Percep- 
tions" —  Mere  Units  without  Univer- 
sal,— 

Purely  Rational  Subject  without  Empirical 
Object  — Mere  "Synthetical  Unity  of 
Apperception  "  — Mere  Universal  with- 
out Units. 

VOL.  I.  —  8 


Unreal  I,  as  « 


or 


\ 


114 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


n.   Identity  in  Difference  of  Experience  and  Reason 


(both 


Real  I,  as 


and 


in 


Empirical  Object  — "Succession  of  Percep- 
tions  "—Units  in  their  own  Universal,  — 

Rational  Subject  —  "  Synthetical  Unity'  of 
Apperception  "  —  Universal  in  All  its  own 
Units,  — 

Personal  Subject-Object  -  Self  Knowing 
Self  in  Knowing  its  Kind  —  (Jeneric  Unity 
of  Apperception  —  Universal  in  Units  (I 
as  Subject-Object  of  Personal  Conscious- 
ness) =  Unit  in  Higher  Universal  (I  as  a 
Man  in  We  as  Mankind). i 

^1^'^'V""^- ^"""'^^  ""'^"^'''  '"^^'  ^""'*^^^  of  philosophy  consists 
simply  in  bnnging  into  explicit  consciousness  what  has  lain  iniplicitlv  in 
the  consciousness  of  all  men  from  antiquity  down.     Philosophy,  therefore 
establishes  nothing  new  ;  what  we  have  arrived  at  by  reflection  is  alreadC 
irrrl'^*'  prejudgment  of  everybody."     (Encyklo,,adie,  Werke,  VI. 
4d,  44.)    But  the  abysmal  difference  between  the  results  at  which  Hegel 
amves  and  the  results  arrived  at  above  will  be  plain  to  any  one  who  com- 
pares  the  doctrine  of  the  real  I,  set  forth  in  these  tables,  with  Hegel's 
doctnne  of  the  pure  I :   -  /  is  the  pure  being-for-self  in  which  every, 
thing  particular  is  denied  and  abolished,  this  ultimate,  simple,  and  pure 
fact  o  consciousness.    We  can  say,  '  /  and  thought  are  the  same,'  or  more 
definitely,  '/  is  a  thing  which  thinks '  [Da..  Dmken  ah  Denlntdes  -  res 
titans:  cf.  die  logisch^ Idee  .  .   .  ist  die  absolute  :,'uhsfanz  des  Gcistes  vie 
der  Natur     (Ibid.  353)]  .  .  .  Every  man  is  a  whole  world  of  repi^senta. 
tions  which  are  buried  in  the  night  of  the  I.     /  is  thus  the  universal  in 
which  abstraction  is  made  from  everything  particular,  but  in  which  at  the 
same  time  everything  lies  concealed.     Hence  it  is  not  the  merely  abstract 
universality,  but  the  universality  which  contains  eveiything  in  itself  " 
{Ibid  47-48.)    This  is  abstraaing,  yet  not  aj,stracting !    Hegel's  /  like 
Kant's,  vanishes  in  a.  o         » 


CHAPTER  IV 

THREEFOLD  ORIGIN  OF  THE  REAL  I 

§  61.  The  concept  of  the  real  I,  however  carefully  de- 
termiDed  with  respect  to  its  form,  must  still  remain  fatally 
defective  as  knowledge,  or  true  concept,  until  the  real  I  as 
object  of  knowledge,  ha^  been  no  less  carefully  determined 
with  respect  to  its  origin.     In  these  modern  days,  when  all 
scientific  investigation  aims  to  explain  classification  by  gene- 
sis or  heredity,  it  would  be  superfluous  to  urge  that  knowl- 
edge  of  form  without  knowledge  of  origin  falls  far  short  of 
either  science  or  philosophy.     That  may  safely  be  taken 
for  granted.     Analysis,  however,  discloses  that  the  proxi- 
mate origin  of  the  real  I  is  threefold:  (I)  its  origin  as  a 
real  unit;  (II)  its  origin  as  a  real  universal;  and  (III)  its 
origin  as  a  real  but  partial  concept  of  itself  as  a  real  unit- 
universal. 

§  62.  I.  The  oneness  or  real  unity  of  the  I  is  its  real 
determination  as  a  unit  separated  from,  yet  inseparably  and 
necessarily  related  to,  other  units  of  the  same  kind.  That 
is,  the  I,  aa  a  real  unit,  is  simply  My  Self  as  One  of 
the   We, 

The  origin  of  the  I  as  a  real  unit,  therefore,  is  neces- 
sarily the  We  as  a  real  universal.  The  universal  is  the 
only  origin  of  the  individual ;  the  kind  alone  is  the  origin 
of  the  thing.  Out  of  the  species  springs  the  specimen ; 
the  species  is  the  specimen's  necessary  condition  and  expla- 
nation  just  because  it  is  the  specimen's  only  possible  source. 
Nothing  but  evolution  at  last  explains.  The  human  I  (and 
the  human  I,  as  the  subject  of  human  knowledge,  is  alone 
considered  here)  cannot  originate  in  itself;  it  cannot  origi- 
nate in  another  human  I ;  it  can  originate  solely  in  the 


116 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THREEFOLD  ORIGIN  OF  THE  REAL 


117 


human  We,  and  its  actual  or  historical  origin  is  birth  — 
that  is,  derivation  from  two  I's,  each  of  which  is  derived 
from  two  other  I's,  and  so  from  an  act  of  the  We,  When 
Kant  teaches  that  the  apperceptive  "I  think,"  as  a,  priori 
synthesis  of  the  manifold  in  one  and  the  same  subject,^ 
is  that  original  synthetic  "  act "  of  the  rational  self-con- 
sciousness which  conditions  every  act  or  state  of  the  em- 
pirical consciousness,  is  one  and  the  same  in  every  such  act 
or  state,  and  is  conditioned  by  no  act  beyond  itself,  —  when 
he  teaches  that  this  aboriginal  "  I  think  "  is  itself  that  very 
"  faculty  "  of  "  understanding  "  which  conjoins  a  priori  the 
manifold  content  of  "  my  "  consciousness  into  one  series 
and  makes  it  "  mine,"  —  he  incontrovertibly  begins  with  the 
individual  subject  as  his  absolute  first,  his  "highest  prin- 
ciple of  human  cognition,"  his  unconditioned  and  underived 
source  of  "  pure  knowledge  a  priori  "  in  a  merely  given  I. 
Nowhere  does  he  seek  to  account  for  it  rationally,  to  explain 
its  "bare  existence,"  to  trace  its  existential  origin  (§  101). 
But,  self-cvidently,  that  which  is  merely  given  is  never 
anything  but  a  datum  of  experience ;  and,  paradoxical  as  it 
appears,  pure  experience  becomes  thus  the  sole  foundation 
of  the  Kantian  system  of  pure  reason !  In  this  way,  how- 
ever, no  real  unity  of  the  I  is  arrived  at  — nothing  but  the 
abstract  unity  of  the  "  I  think,"  as  isolated  common  ele- 
ment of  an  indeterminate  series  of  empirical  states  in  an 
empirically  given  I ;  whereas  no  indeterminate  series  can  be 
known  as  a  real  unit  until  determined  as  a  whole  series  in 
relation  to  other  whole  series  of  the  same  kind.  Hence  the 
mere  universality  of  the  "  I  think "  in  "  my "  conscious 
states  is  insufficient  to  yield  any  intelligible  unity  of  the  I, 
so  long  as  the  I  is  taken  as  an  absolute  or  unconditioned 
first,  and  Kant  was  perfectly  logical  when,  from  such 
premises,  he  inferred  the  I  as  a  mere  "  unknown  x ; "  for 
mere  indeterminate  universality  is  by  no  means  real  unity. 

1  "Also  hat  alles  Mannigfaltige  der  Anschauung  eine  nothwendige  Be- 
ziehung  auf  das :  ich  denke^  in  demselben  Subject,  darin  dieses  Mannig- 
faltige augetroffen  wird."    (Werke,  III.  116.) 


It  is  only  when  every  I  is  known  to  be  conditioned  and 
determined  by  the  We,  only  when  the  synthetic  act  of  the 
I  in  the  "  I  think "  is  known  to  be  conditioned  by  the 
synthetic  act  of  the  We  in  generation  and  determined  in 
the  I  itself  by  heredity  from  the  We,  that  the  real  unity  of 
the  I  becomes  itself  both  empirically  and  rationally  known. 
Experience  explains  the  origin  of  the  I  by  birth,  and  reason 
explains  it  by  the  strictly  necessary  derivation  of  the  indi- 
vidual from  the  universal,  of  the  I  from  the  We;  the  "I 
think"  itself  is  an  impossible  judgment  or  "  act,"  until  the 
subject  has  attained  to  consciousness  of  itself  as  /  in  the  We 
through  the  generic  unity  of  apperception.  Thus  the  origin 
of  the  I,  as  a  real  unit,  is  explained  empirically  by  the  fact  of 
birth,  and  rationally  by  the  reformed  theory  of  universals ; 
and  the  absolute  coincidence  of  the  two  explanations  is  itself 
explained  by  the  necessary  identity  in  difference  of  experi- 
ence and  reason  in  all  human  knowledge. 

§  63.  II.   The  wholeness  or  real  universality  of  the  I  is 
its  real  determination  as  a  self-conscious  series  of  conscious 
states  or  acts,  — a  self -knowing  and  partly  determined, 
partly  self-determining   Whole  of  Thought,   Feeling,    and 
Will,  which  is  identical  with  all  like  wholes  in  so  far  as  it 
shares  their  common  constitution  as  subject-object,  yet  is 
differentiated  from  them  all  in  so  far  as  it  has  its  own  pe- 
culiar, unique,  and  unshared  content  of  self-consciousness, 
its  real  individual  difference.     That  is,   the  I,  as  a  real 
universal,  is  My  Self  in  each  and  all  of  My  Conscious  States. 
To  seek  the  origin  of  the  I  as  a  real  universal,  therefore, 
is,  in  other  words,  to  seek  the  origin  of  personal  conscious- 
ness in  the  I  as  a  real  unit.     From  these  two  real  determi- 
nations of  the  I,  as  a  unit-universal  or  object  of  knowledge, 
there  originate  in  the  I  itself,  as  subject  of  knowledge,  two 
modes  or  forms  of  consciousness,  as  knowledge  of  the  ob- 
ject by  the  subject:  (1)  race-consciousness  or  knowledge  of 
the  We,  and  (2)  self-consciousness  or  knowledge  of  the  I. 
Now,  in  general,  knowledge  of  a  thing  and  knowledge  of 
its  kind  are  one  and  the  same  knowledge  of  the  object, 


118 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THREEFOLD  ORIGIN  OF  THE  REAL  I 


which  is  necessarily  both  a  unit  in  its  own  universal  and  a 
universal  in  all  its  own  units  as  a  whole;  consequently, 
this  one  knowledge  of  the  object  is   both  empirical,   as 
knowledge  of  units,  and  rational,  as  knowledge  of  univer- 
sals.     Hence,  in  particular,  knowledge  either  of  the  I  or 
of  the  We  is  necessarily  empirical  and  rational  knowledge  of 
both  in  one.    It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  the  two  modes  of 
consciousness  must  interpenetrate  one  another;  neither  can 
originate  alone ;  each  involves  the  other ;  both  at  once  are 
essential  and  indispensable  to  any  real  knowledge  whatever 
of  "A  Self'  or  "My  Self"  or  "Me."     Hence  results  a 
principle  of  the  utmost  importance  in  philosophy,  inasmuch 
as  it  unites  the  two  traditionally  opposed  and  seemingly 
irreconcilable  principles  of  the  mere  "  succession  of  percep- 
tions" (empiricism)  and  the   mere  "synthetical   unity  of 
apperception  "  (rationalism)  in  the  higher  truth  of  the  ge- 
neric unity  of  apperception  (identity  in  difference  of  expe- 
rience  and  reason):  namely.  Race-consciousness  is  the  Ps 
knowledge  of  itself  as  a  unit  in  its  own  universal^  and  self- 
consciousness  is  the  I's  knowledge  of  itself  as  a  universal  in 
all  its  awn  units ;  but   neither  race-comciousness  nor  self- 
consciousness  is  possible  in  any  real  /,  except  in  one  personal 
consciousness  of  the  I  in  the  We,  as  a  universal  unit  in  its 
own  unitary  universal}     The  origin  of  the  I  as  a  real  uni- 
versal, therefore,  is  the  origin  of  personal  consciousness  in 
the  simultaneous  development  of  its  two  essential  and  re- 
ciprocally conditioning  factors,  inherited  race-consciousness 
and  spontaneous  self-consciousness  (see  below,  §  68). 

§  64.  III.  The  community  or  common  element  of  the  I, 
abstracted  from  all  your  or  my  real  peculiarities  as  individ- 
uals, is  that  self-relational  constitution  of  «  subject-object " 
which,  being  common  to  all  I's,  is  real  in  every  I,  yet  con- 
stitutes the  whole  reality  of  no  I ;  it  is  altogether  unreal 

1  Multiple  personality  in  an  individual  (c/  Pierre  Janet,  L'Automa- 
tisme  Psychologique,  1889)  is  so  manifestly  a  form  of  disease  as  to  militate 
in  no  degree  against  the  truth  of  the  above  principle. 


119 


by  itself  alone,  except  as  part  of  each  I  —  the  incomplete 
object  of  an  imperfect  concept.     The  perfection  of  any  con- 
cept is  its  perfect  truth,  which  must  consist  in  its  perfect 
agreement  with  the  complete  object  —  that  is,  in  its  abso- 
lute comprehension  of  the  object's  concrete  constitution,  as 
at  once  whole  universal  and  whole  unit  in  a  higher  luiiversal. 
On  the  one  hand,  the  imperfect  concept  (concept  of  a  part 
abstracted  from  the  whole  concrete  unit-universal  or  real 
object)  is  an  inadequate  thought,  which  apprehends  part  of 
the  reality,  but  does  not  comprehend  the  whole  of  it ;  it 
conceives  the  common  element  in  all  the  units,  but  con- 
ceives neither  a  whole  unit  nor  a  whole  universal.     On  the 
other  hand,  the  perfect  concept  (concept  of  the  whole  con- 
crete unit-universal  or  real  object)  would  be  an  adequate 
thought    which  should   apprehend   and    comprehend    the 
reality  in  its  wholeness  as  an  object  both  of  experience  and 
reason  —  should  conceive,  not  only  the  common  element  in 
all  the  units,  but  also  the  whole  universality  and  the  whole 
unity  of  each  and  every  unit,  and  thereby  the  whole  higher 
universal.     Thus  the  imperfect  concept  of  the  I,  as  mere 
"  subject-object "   or   "  Each  of  the   We,''   conceives   the 
common  element  in  all  I's,  but  conceives  neither  a  whole  I 
nor  a  whole  We ;  while,  since  the  thing  cannot  be  known 
out  of  its  kind,  the  perfect  concept  of  the  I  would  conceive, 
not  only  the  common  element  of  all  I's,  but  also  (1)  the 
entire  personal  consciousness  of  every  I,  as  a  real  individ- 
ual, and  (2)  all  the  correlations,  interconnections,  and  in- 
teractions of  the  personal  consciousnesses  of  all  I's  in  the 
We,  as  their  higher  universal.     Such  a  perfect  concept  as 
this,  being  both  empirically  and  rationally  adequate  to  the 
object  in  its  wholeness,  and  therefore  absolutely  true,  is 
possible  only  as  absolute   and  infinite  knowledge;  it  cer- 
tainly is  not  found  in  human  knowledge,  but  constitutes 
the  unrealized  ideal  of  it.     The  actual  human  concept  of 
the  I,  as  mere  " subject-object " or  "Each  of  the  We,"  is 
necessarily  imperfect,  because  it  conceives  merely  the  com- 
mon element  in  all  I's,  and  does  not  conceive  either  a  whole  I 


120 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


or  a  whole  We  —  abstracts  from  the  « I  in  the  We  "  (real 
genus)  so  much  only  as  belongs  to  all  I's  (abstract  specific 
or  class  essence),  and  thereby  fails  to  conceive  either  the  I 
or  the  We  in  the  fulness  of  its  reality ;  while  at  the  same 
time  It  IS  necessarily  concrete,  that  is,  both  empirical  and 
ratwnal,  because  it  could  not  be  a  true  concept  at  all,  unless 
It  conceived  the  "subject-object-  itself  to  a  certain  extent 
^shoth  a  unit  and  a  universal     For,  since  every  possible 
object  of  knowledge  must  be  concrete,  as  identity  in  dif- 
ference of  unit  and  universal,  every  true  concept,  whether 
perfect  or  imperfect,  must  be  likewise  concrete,  as  identity 
in  difference  of  experience  and  reason.     Hence  the  imper- 
fect concrete  concept  of  the  I  as  mere  "subject-object''  is 
tne  inadequate  thought  of  the  common  element  of  all  Ps 
without  the  real  peculiarities  of  any  I  -  the  human  cog- 
nition,  necessarily  partial,  yet  none  the  less  indispensable 
of '^Each  of  the  We;''  for  the  only  exhaustive  cognition' 
of  "Each  of  the  We"  would  be  tlie  identity  in  difference 
ot  intuition  and  concept  as  perfect  concrete  concept,  that 
is,  as  absolute  percept-concept,  ?,t  once  exhaustively  empiri- 
cal and  exhaustively  rational,  of  Each  and  Every  I  as   ill 
of  the  We,^ 

1  No  one  with  the  least  capacity  of  intellectual  aiscrimination  will  con- 

«  V  %rT''  '°"''P*'  "^  ^^^'  explaincHl,  with  Hegel's  konkrcter 
Begpff.  The  former  is  the  concretion,  or  identity  in  difference,  of  percent 
and  concept ;  it  is  detennined  as  such,  in  accordance  with  the  pnndple  of 

^.t  21  T  ''''''  '^  experience  and  reason,  by  the  necessary  nature 
of  the  oljcct  known,  as  identity  in  difference  of  unit  and  universal  But 
the  latter,  as  reines  Denkai,  is  the  absolute  separation  of  pon.ept  and  con- 
cept-pure  Begriff  without  Ansclmuung ;  it  is  determined  as  such    in 

(W"kr  Vr46  t.f  I't'  ^"""'^^  ''^'  ^'°"^*^^  ''  *^^  ^"^^  «"^«^-- 

IvverKe,  VI.  46,  353),  by  the  necessary  nature  of  the  knowim  subject  as 
VnreBegrifdesBegrifes.  What  Hegel  means  by  saying  that  "thek 
Srrz/f  IS  the  absolutely  concrete,"he  himself  explains  at  once,  in  the  same 
connection,  by  saying  that  "the  moments  of  the  2?.^J [universality,  par- 
ticulanty,  mdmduahty]  cannot  be  separated  ; "  that,  -  inasmuch  as  their 
Identity  IS  po^ed  in  the  Be^rriff,  each  of  its  moments  can  be  immediately 
apprehended  only  from  and  with  the  others  ;  "  that  the  Begrif  can  properly 
be  called  an  "abstraction,"  so  fur  as  "its  element  is  Thought  in  general 


THREEFOLD  ORIGIN  OF  THE  REAL  I 


121 


§  65,  Now  the  origin  of  the  I  as  a  conceptual  universal, 
an  imperfect  concrete  concept  of  the  "subject-object"  or 
"  Each  of  the  We,*'  is  explained  in  the  following  considera- 
tions respecting  the  origin  of  the  human  concept  in  gen- 
eral. Since  the  only  form  of  human  knowledge  is  that 
of  the  percept-coticept  which  to  a  greater  or  less  extent 
agrees  with  the  object  as  unit-universal,  and  since  the  only 
growth  of  human  knowledge  is  the  gradual  increase  of  this 
agreement  through  the  continuous  activity  of  experience 
and  reason,  the  origin  of  the  human  percept-concept  in 
general  (for  shortness'  sake,  "  the  concept ")  is  the  origin 
of  all  human  knowledge  itself. 

I.  If  the  concept  originated  spontaneously  and  solely  in 
the  activity  of  the  object,  it  would  be  the  object's  concept, 
not  the  subject's;  there  would  be  no  subject  but  the  object 
itself.  If  absolutely  inactive,  the  subject  would  vanish  out 
of  human  knowledge.  This,  if  it  were  tliinkable,  would  be 
absolute  materialism,  or  absolute  absorption  of  the  subject 
by  the  object. 

II.  If  the  concept  originated  spontaneously  and  solely 
in  the  activity  of  the  subject,  it  would  be  the  subject's  con- 

and  not  empirically  concrete  Sense  ;"  and  that  "the  absolutely  concrete 
is  Spirit  or  Miud  [dcr  Geist]."  ( Werke,  VI,  323-324.)  P>ut  this  is  simply 
the  rational  or  ideal  concretion,  or  identity  in  difference,  of  the  abstract 
elements  of  an  abstraction  ;  Hegel's  konkrelcr  Bcgrlff  remains  still  rcincr 
Begriff,  pure  reason  without  experience,  pure  concept  without  intuition. 
Only  phenomenal  dulness  could  confound  it  with  the  real  concretion,  or 
identity  in  difference,  of(l)  unit  and  universal  in  every  possible  object, 
(2)  exiKjrience  and  reason  in  every  possible  subject,  and  (3)  intuition  and 
concept  in  every  possible  cognition.  To  the  principle  of  pure  experience 
(empiricism)  and  to  the  principle  of  pure  reason  or  pure  thought  (rational- 
ism), the  scientiHc  theory  of  universals  opjmses  the  principle  of  their  neces- 
sary concretion,  or  identity  in  difference,  in  every  percei>t-concept  or  real 
cognition  (scientific  realism).  This  note  is  a  sufficient  reply  to  the  attempt 
by  Professor  Josiah  Royce,  in  the  Appendix  to  his  "Spirit  of  Modern  Phi- 
losophy," to  refute  (without  first  understanding)  the  scientific  theory  of 
universals,  outlined  in  part  in  "  The  Way  out  of  Agnosticism  ;  "  and  to 
misrepresent  my  philosophy  as  derived  from  Hegel's,  in  the  "  International 
Journal  of  Ethics  "  for  October,  1890. 


122 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


cept,  indeed,  but  the  concept  of  no  object;  there  would  be 
no  object  but  the  subject  itself.  The  object,  if  absolutely 
inactive,  would  vanish  out  of  human  knowledge ;  its  place 
would  be  held  by  an  absolute  illusion,  and  illusion  is  the 
reverse  of  knowledge.  This,  if  it  were  thinkable,  would  be 
consistent  idealism,  that  is,  absolute  solipsism,  or  absolute 
absorption  of  the  object  by  the  subject. 

III.  If  the  concept,  then,  is  possible  at  all  as  knowledge, 
or  true  thinking  of  the  object  by  the  subject  (§  50  and 
footnotes),  it  must  originate  in  their  co-activity,  in  action 
and  reaction  between  the  object  and  the  subject,  as  equally 
active  and  therefore  equally  real.  This  is  scientific  realism, 
or  dynamical  correlation  of  subject  and  object.* 


1  This  scientific  realism  is  at  least  as  old  as  Aristotle's  doctrine  of  im- 
mediate knowledge:  **  Jenes  unniittelbare  Erkennen  wild  daher  nur  eine 
Anschauung,  und  ini  Unterschied  von  der  siniilichen  Wahrnehniung  nur  eine 
geistige  Anschauung  sein  konnen.  Da  aber  doch  der  menschliche  Geist 
die  Begrifle  nicht  als  angeborene  in  sich  hat,  wird  audi  die  Anschauung, 
durch  die  er  sie  findet,  nicht  in  einer  Selbstanschauung,  einem  Akt  der 
Selbstbeobachtung  bestehen,  durch  den  er  sich  der  Principien  als  einer 
vorher  schon  in  ihm  liegenden  Wahrbeit  bewusst  wiirde  ;  sondern  darin, 
dass  gewisse  Gedanken  und  Begriffe  jetzt  erst  durch  eine  Einwirkung  des 
Gedachten  auf  den  denkeuden  Geist  in  ahnlicher  Weise  entstehen,  wie  die 
Wahrnehmung  durch  eine  Einwirkung  des  Wahrgenommenen  auf  das 
Wahrnehmende  entsteht.  Und  an  diese  Analogic  halt  sich  Aristoteles 
wirklich,  wenn  er  sagt,  der  Nus  [voOs]  verhalte  sich  zum  Denkbaren,  wie 
der  Sinn  zum  Wahrnehmbaren  ;  er  erkenne  das  Denkbare,  in  dem  er  sich 
mit  demselben  beriihre  ;  und  wie  die  Wahrnehmung  als  solche  immer  wahr 
sei,  so  sei  es  auch  das  Denken,  sofem  es  sich  auf  die  Begriffe  als  solche 
beziehe."  (E.  Zeller,  Die  Philosophic  derGriechen,  II.  ii.  195  f.)  Despite 
the  crudities  of  this  doctrine,  it  has  had  enough  vitality  and  truth  to 
maintain  itself  successfully  against  the  worst  crudities  of  the  current 
relativism  of  the  present  day ;  for  without  it  in  some  form  there  can  be 
no  such  thing  as  knowledge  of  a  world  external  to  the  individual  con- 
sciousness. For  example,  it  reasserts  itself  in  Professor  Riehl :  **  Unsere 
Erkenntniss  ist  die  Erkenntniss  von  Erscheinungen  der  Dinge,  der  Ur- 
sprung  unserer  Ideen  daher  weder  ausschliesslich  in  uns  noch  ausschliess- 
lich  in  den  Dingen  ausser  uns  zu  suchen,  sondern  sowohl  in  uns  als  in  den 
Dingen,  die  auf  unser  Bewusstsein  einwirken."  (A.  Riehl,  Der  philo- 
sophische  Kriticismus  und  seine  Bedeutung  fiir  die  positive  Wissenschaft, 


THREEFOLD  ORIGIN  OF  THE  REAL  I 


123 


IV.   The  subject,  therefore,  cannot   possibly  create  the 
object  or  originate  knowledge  out  of  itself  alone.     There 
is  no  such  thing  as  "pure  knowedge  a  jirioriy     On  the 
one  hand,  the  subject  must  be  stimulated  to  activity  as 
experience  by  the  active  presence  of  the  object  as  unit 
(the  thing),  and  it  must  be  stimulated  to  activity  as  reason 
by   the   active   presence   of  the   object  as   universal  (the 
kind) ;  this  is  simply  saying  that  there  can  be  no  knowl- 
edge, either  empirical   or   rational,  without  something  to 
know  —  that  is,  a  thing  of  some  kind.     On  the  other  hand, 
the  subject  itself,  reacting  against  the  activity  of  the  ob- 
ject, must  determine  its  own  stimulated  activity  and  fix  tlie 
form  of  its  own  product  as  either  perfect  concept  or  im- 
perfect concept,  according  to  its  own  definite  capacity  for 
experience  and  reason.     If  the  subject  be  infinite,  the  re- 
sultiint  concept  must  be  determined  as  infinite,  adequate, 
or  perfect ;  if  the  subject  be  finite,  the  resultant  concept 
must   be  determined   as  finite,   inadequate,   or  imperfect. 
But  in  either  case,  whether  perfect  or  imperfect,  the  con- 
cept must  be  concrete,  that  is,  both  empirical  and  rational ; 
it  can  never  be  the  product  either  of  "pure  experience" 
or  of  "  pure  reason."     Even  the  so-called  abstraction  or  ab- 
stract concept  is  never  abstract  in  the  sense  of  being  purely 
empirical  or  purely  rational,  that  is,  in  the  sense  of  con- 
ceiving the  object  as  either  pure  unit  or  pure  universal : 
this  is  impossible,  because  each  of  these  two  real  deter- 
minations of  the  object  is  the  necessary  condition  of  the 
other,  and  the  reality  or  real  constitution  of  the  object  as 
necessarily  a  unit-universal  or  thing  of  some  kind,  neces- 
sarily determines  all  real  knowledge  of  it.     The  inade- 

Bd.  II.  Th.  II.  s.  175,  1887.)  Riehl  thinks  that  his  "critical  realism" 
rests  on  a  Kantian  foundation  ;  but  he  breaks  away  here  from  Kant,  to 
whom  Erschcinung  =  Vorstellung^  and  to  whom,  therefore,  Ersclicinungcn 
are  not  **  phaenomena  of  things^  but  merely  "  phaenomena  in  us  "  —  not 
the  "  influence  of  things  upon  our  consciousness,"  but  the  mere  activity  of 
consciousness  itself  without  any  external  knowable  "cause."  For  the 
causality  of  the  Kantian  I/inge  an  sich,  whatever  it  may  be,  contributes 
nothing  either  to  the  form  or  to  the  content  of  a  real  cognition. 


\i 


124 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THREEFOLD  ORIGIN  OF  THE  REAL  I 


125 


quacy  or  imperfection  of  the  imperfect  concept  consists  in 
its  apprehending  partially  or  dimly  the  double-constitution 
of  the  object,  and  failing  to  comprehend  it  in  its  whole 
extent.  Consequently,  even  the  imperfect  concept  is  nec- 
essarily concrete^  that  is,  both  empirical  and  rational,  so 
far  as  it  goes,  inasmuch  as  it  partly  conceives  both  the 
unity  and  the  universality  of  the  object  in  their  insepara- 
ble union ;  but  it  is  at  the  same  time  abstract,  that  is,  inade- 
quate, in  the  sense  that  it  conceives  only  a  part  abstracted 
from  the  whole.  Hence,  every  human  concept  is  both 
empirical  and  rational,  or  concrete,  so  far  as  it  goes ;  but  it 
is  at  the  same  time  abstract,  inadequate,  or  imperfect,  be- 
cause it  is  neither  exhaustively  empirical  nor  exhaustively 
rational,  but  necessarily  apprehends  the  object  under  the 
human  condition  of  a  more  or  less  limited  capacity  for 
experience  and  reason  alike. 

V.  Thus  the  object  of  knowledge,  as  identity  in  differ- 
ence of  unit  and  universal,  is  necessarily  an  active  concrete 
reality  or  unit-universal  of  energy,  which  as  unit,  or  object 
of  experience,  is  wholly  immanent  in  its  own  universal, 
while  as  universal,  or  object  of  reason,  it  is  (1)  immanent 
in  all  of  its  own  units  as  a  whole,  and  (2)  both  immanent 
and  transcendent  in  each  of  them  as  a  part.  Hence,  the 
concept  of  the  object,  as  identity  in  difference  of  experience 
and  reason,  is  (1)  concrete,  so  far  as  it  conceives  the  object 
as  at  once  unit  and  universal,  and  (2)  imperfect,  so  far  as 
it  fails  to  conceive  the  object  exhaustively  as  whole  unit 
and  whole  universal ;  that  is,  it  is  concrete  so  far  as  it  knows 
the  ohject,  and  imperfect  so  far  as  it  fails  to  kiiow  it.  This 
is  the  necessary  form  of  human  knowledge  in  general,  since 
knowledge  itself  consists  in  the  truth  or  agreement  of  the 
concept  with  the  object,  and  since  it  can  never  transcend  the 
subject's  capacity  of  experience  and  reason.  This  partial  but 
necessary  imperfection  of  all  human  concepts,  which  con- 
stitutes the  only  assignable  limit  of  human  knowledge,  is 
the  inherent  and  ineradicable  defect  of  the  human  con- 
cept per  se,  and  stamps  it  as  at  once  the  strength  and  the 


\ 


\ 


weakness,  the  glory  and  the  infirmity,  of  the  human  mind 
(§  93). 

VI.  Every  human  concept,  being  concrete  so  far  as  the 
subject  both  empirically  and  rationally  knows  the  object  in 
part,  and  being  imperfect  so  far  as  tlie  subject  fails  to  know 
the  object  exhaustively  in  its  wholeness,  has  its  origin 
neither  in  the  subject  alone  nor  in  the  object  alone,  but 
in  their  co-activity,  action  and  reaction,  or  dynamical  corre- 
lation. That  is,  it  originates  (1)  objectively,  in  positive 
stimulation  of  the  subject  by  the  object  to  activity  as  ex- 
perience and  reason,  and  (2)  subjectively,  in  negative  limi- 
tation of  this  activity  by  the  bounds  of  the  subject's  capacity 
of  experience  and  reason.  While,  however,  the  origlii  of 
the  human  concept  is  thus  the  origin  of  all  human  knowl- 
edge, it  must  not  be  overlooked  that  the  growth  of  the 
concept  depends  (3)  on  the  subject's  positive  reaction 
upon  the  object  in  experimental  investigation,  directed 
by  scientific  imagination  in  the  free  formation  of  hypothe- 
ses. This  is  a  topic  not  germane  to  tlie  present  discussion, 
but  necessary  to  consideration  of  the  scientific  method,  and 
is  mentioned  here  only  to  avoid  the  appearance  of  failing 
to  recognize  the  subject's  free  activity  as  essential  to 
knowledge. 

VII.  Consequently,  the  concept  of  the  real  human  T, 
personal  subject-object,  or  Each  of  the  We,  being  concrete 
and  imperfect  in  the  sense  just  explained,  has  its  origin 
neither  in  the  I  as  rational  subject  alone  nor  in  the  I  as 
empirical  object  alone,  but  in  the  I  as  real  identity  in  dif- 
ference of  the  two.  That  is,  it  originates,  (1)  as  concept 
of  the  "  succession  of  perceptions,"  in  the  I  determined  by 
its  own  origin  in  the  We  to  be  an  active  object  of  experi- 
ence and  reason  ;  (2)  as  concept  of  the  "  synthetical  unity 
of  apperception,"  in  the  I  determined  by  its  own  origin  in 
the  We  and  its  inherited  capacity  to  be  an  active  subject  of 
experience  and  reason  ;  and  (3)  as  concept  of  the  generic 
unity  of  apperception,  in  the  I  determined  by  its  origin,  its 
inherited  capacity,  and  its  free  activity,  to  be  an  active 


126 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THREEFOLD  ORIGIN  OF  THE  REAL  I 


mhjecUohject  of  experience  and  reason,  a  personal  conscious- 
ness, a  real  person.     As  real  object,  the  I  is  constantly 
determined  by  stimulation  or   action    from  without;   as 
real   subject,  the  I  constantly  determines  itself  by  its  own 
reaction  from  within ;  as  real  subject-object,  therefore,  the 
I  is^a  unitary-universal  self-conscious  energy  wliich  origi- 
nate*s  the  ever-growing  concept  of  itself  out  of  itself.     The 
origin  of  the  concept  of  the  real  I,  therefore,  is  the  generic 
unity  of  apperception,  identity  in  difference  of  race-con- 
sciousness and  self-consciousness,  or  personal  consciousness 
as  I  in  the  We ;  its  necessary  form  is  that  of  a  concrete 
but  imperfect  thought,  true  so  far,  and  so  far  only,  as  it 
agrees  as  concept  with  the  real  I  as  object  ;  and  its  growth 
IS  Its  gradual  increase  in  truth,  in  proportion  as  this  agree- 
ment is  enlarged  through  perpetual  stimulation  of  the  I 
from  without  and  perpetual  reaction  of  the  I  from  within. 

§  m.  To  the  problem  of  §  61,  therefore,  touching  the 
threefold  proximate  origin  of  the  real  I,  a  solution  has 
now  been  found,  as  follows  : 

I.  The  I  as  a  real  unit  ('^My  Self  as  One  of  the  We") 
originates  in  the  We,  through  hinh  or  heredity. 

II.  The  I  as  a  real  universal  ("  My  Self  in  each  and  all 
of  My  Conscious  States,")  originates  in  the  I  as  a  real 
unit,  through  the  identity  in  difference  of  heredity  and 
spontaneity  —  through  the  simultaneous  evolution  of  in- 
herited race-consciousness  and  original  self^onsciousness, 
as  two  distinguishable,  inseparable,  and  reciprocally  con- 
ditioning factors  of  one  personal  consciovs7iess. 

III.  The  imperfect  concrete  concept  of  the  I  as  a  real 
unit-universal,  thing  of  some  kind,  or  object  of  knowledge 
("  My  Self  in  each  and  all  of  My  Conscious  States  as  One 
of  the  We,")  originates  in  the  I  as  one  personal  conscious- 
ness or  real  person,  through  the  yeneric  unity  of  appercep- 
Hon  —  through  the  co-activity  of  inherited  race-conscious- 
ness and  original  self-consciousness  in  one  gradually 
evolved  personal  consciousness,  subject-object,  or  real 
personality,  producing  the  concept  of  itself  out  of  itself  in 


127 


agreement  with  itself,  and  therefore  arriving  at  the  truth 
of  itself  as  partial  but  real  knowledge  of  the  I  in  the  We.^ 

1  The  further  problems  of  the  ultimate  origin  and  the  ultimate  destiny 
of  the  /  in  ilie  We  do  not  belong  here.  For  the  sake  of  completeness, 
however,  it  may  be  well  to  say  briefly  (not  dogmatically)  tliat  the  ultimate 
origin  of  the  We  can  be  only  the  Absolute  I,  whence  necessarily  results  a 
third  element  in  the  jwrsonal  consciousness  as  God-consciousness,  condi- 
tioning and  conditioned  by  both  race-consciousness  and  self-consciousness  ; 
further,  that  the  ultimate  destiny  of  the  We,  which  includes  that  of  the  I,' 
is  a  problem  that  cannot  rationally  arise  except  out  of  ethico-religious  con- 
siderations, and  therefore  belongs  to  Chapter  XVIII.  It  may  also  be  here 
pointed  out  that  inherited  race-consciousness,  which  is  more  than  mere 
"inherited  habit,"  is  the  true  significance  of  instinct. 


CHAPTER  V 

TRADITIONAL  ORIGIN  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS ;  EGO 

AND  NON-EGO 

§  67.  It  will  not  fail  to  be  noticed  that  this  account  of 
the  origin  of  self-consciousness,  as  absolutely  conditioned 
on  race-consciousness  in  the  generic  unity  of  apperception 
(antithesis  of  Ego  and  Other-Egos),  differs  irreconcilably 
from  the  traditional  account  of  its  origin  in  the  antithesis 
of  Ego  and  Non-Ego.^ 

It  is,  of  course,  a  mere  logical  truism  to  say  that  "  the 
opposition  of  A  and  Not-A  divides  the  universe."'  The 
opposition  itself,  however,  posits  the  universe,  that  is,  recog- 
nizes it  as  existent ;  there  could  be  no  division  of  a  universe 
without  a  universe  to  be  divided.    Moreover,  the  universe 

^  '*  Der  an  die  Spitze  der  gesammten  theoretischen  Wissenchaftslehro 
gestellt(i  Satz :  das  Ich  setzt  sich  als  hestimmt  durch  das  Nicht-Ich  —  ist 
vollkomrnen  erschopft,  und  alle  Widerspriiche,  die  in  domselben  lagen, 
gehobcn.  Das  Ich  kann  sich  nicht  anders  setzen,  als,  dass  cs  durch  das 
Nicht-Ich  bostimint  sey  (kein  Object,  kein  Subject).  Insofern  setzt  es 
sich  als  bestimmt.  Zugleich  setzt  es  sich  auch  als  l>estimmend  ;  weil  das 
begrenzende  im  Nicht-Ich  sein  eigenes  Product  ist  (kein  Subject,  kein 
Object)."  (Fichte,  Grundlage  der  gesammten  Wissenschaftslehre,  Werke, 
I.  218.  For  the  mystical  "Anstoss  von  aussen,"  which  cannot  be  ex- 
plained either  by  the  Ego  or  by  the  Non-Ego,  see  the  same,  pp.  227-231). 
Again,  in  varied  form :  "Die  Gnindbehauptung  des  Philosophen,  als  eines 
solchen,  ist  diese :  So  wie  das  Ich  nur  fiir  sich  selbst  sey,  entstehe  ihm 
zugleich  nothwendig  ein  Seyn  ausser  ihm  ;  der  Gnind  des  letzteren  liege 
im  ersteren,  das  letztere  sey  durch  das  erstere  bedingt :  Selbatbewusstsein 
und  Bewusstsein  eines  Etwas,  das  nicht  wir  selbst  —  seyn  soUe,  sey  noth- 
wendig verbunden  ;  das  erstere  aber  sey  anzusehen  als  das  bedingende, 
iind  das  letztere  als  das  bedingto."  (Zweite  Einleitung  in  die  Wissen- 
schaftslehre, Werke,  I.  457.)    See  further,  below,  Chapter  X. 

«  Cf.  E.  Zeller,  Die  Philosophie  der  Griechen,  II.  ii.  214-221.    So  Kant, 
Logik,  Werke,  VIII.  101 :  "  Alles  Mogliche  ist  entweder  A  oder  won  A." 


TRADITIONAL  ORIGIN  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS    129 

could  not  be  divided,  unless  it  was  previously  undivided, 
that  is,  one  universe ;  and  «  division  »  of  it  is  simply  dis ' 
tinction  of  some  known  units  from  other  known  units,  dis- 
tinction of  two  classes  of  units   in  a  universe  of  units 
Hence  the  opposition  of  A  and  Not-A  cannot  obtain  ex- 
cept within  one  universe  of  units  or  things  (in  the  widest 
sense  of  "thing"  as  unit  of  existence,  of  whatever  sort  or 
nature).     It  means  the  recognition  of  two  species  within 
one  genus,  two  sub-kinds  within  one  kind,  two  classes  of 
existences  within  Existence,  as  summum  genus  opposed  to 
mere  Non-Existence.     It  can  have  no  meaning  at  all,  un- 
less A  denotes  "  things  which  are  A "  and  Not-A  denotes 
"things  which  are  not  A,"  — unless  these  two  classes  of 
things,  q^ia  things,  exist  independently  of  each  other  as 
equal  and  co-ordinate  units  of  existence,  —  unless,  in  short, 
it  is  an  opposition  set  up  within  the  category  Thing.     For^ 
if  A  and  Not-A  could  denote  Thing  and  Not- Thing,' Some- 
thing and  Nothing,  it  would  become  the  purely  formal  or 
unreal  opposition  of  Existence  and  Non-Existence,  which 
in  no  sense  divides  the  real  universe ;  the  universe,  being 
necessarily  a  universe  of  units  or  things,  can  be  divided  only 
as  some-things  and  other-things,  and  the  opposition  of  A 
and  Kot-A,  except  as  dichotomy  of  the  real  kind,  Thing,  is 
really  no  opposition  at  all  —  no  division  of  the  universe. ' 

Further,  A  must  be  already  posited  before  it  can  be 
negated ;  the  negation  of  A  in  Not-A  is  impossible  except 
through  the  prior  position  of  A,  not  only  as  a  unit  of 
existence,  but  also  as  an  object  of  knowledge.  That  is,  A 
cannot  be  negated  unless  it  is  known.  But  every  object 
of  knowledge  is  necessarily  a  something  or  thing  of  some 
kind,  and  every  human  concept  is  necessarily  imperfect 
knowledge  of  a  thing  of  some  kind  (§  65,  IV,  V,  VI). 
Since,  therefore,  the  intrinsic  imperfection  of  the  human 
concept  as  such  consists  in  knowing  its  object  in  part  only, 
the  object  itself  must  be  a  something  partly  known  and  partly 
unknown ;  and  A  must  not  only  denote  its  object  so  far  as 
it  is  a  thing  with  known  marks  or  determinations,  but  also 

VOL.  I.  — 9 


130 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


connote  it  so  far  as  it  is  a  thing  with  known  and  unknown 
determinations.  Now  the  negation  of  A  negates  the  denota- 
tion of  A,  but  does  not  negate  the  connotation  —  negates  the 
marks  which  A  denotes,  but  does  not  negate  what  has  those 
marks  —  negates  known  marks,  but  does  not  negate  thing  ; 
for,  if  Not-A  negated  more  than  what  A  denotes  (that  is, 
if  it  negated  both  denotation  and  connotation,  both  "  known 
marks"  and  "thing"),  it  would  itself  denote  absolute 
Nothing.  In  this  case,  the  universe  would  be  absurdly 
divided  into  Somethings  and  Nothings  as  two  classes  of 
Things  ;  A  would  denote  all  Somethings,  and  Not-A  would 
denote  all  Nothings  or  pure  Nothing;  and  the  opposition 
of  A  and  Not-A  would  not  divide  the  universe  at  all. 
But  this  is  contrary  to  the  original  thesis  that  it  does 
divide  the  universe.  Hence  Not-A,  negating  all  the  known 
marks  of  A  as  a  part  or  element  of  the  universe,  but  at  the 
same  time  positing  things  with  other  marks,  known  and  un- 
known, as  the  residue  of  the  universe,  negates  the  deno- 
tation of  A,  but  still  posits  its  connotation.  That  is,  just  as 
we  found  before,  A  must  be  understood  as  "  things  which 
are  A,"  and  Not-A  as  "things  which  are  not  A;"  but  both 
alike  must  be  understood  as  denoting  the  same  known  marks, 
as  either  present  or  absent,  and  connoting  things  as  a  kind, 
or  else  the  opposition  of  A  and  Not-A  altogether  fails  to 
divide  the  universe.^ 

1  The  above  doctrine  that  Negation,  as  a  thought-function,  applies  to 
the  denotation  of  A,  but  cannot  apply  to  its  connotation,  is  founded  on  the 
necessary  principle  that  all  negation  must  be  negation  of  something  in  par- 
ticular, and  cannot  possibly  be  negation  of  everything  in  general.  For 
negation  of  everything-in-general^:  position  of  nothing  in-particular  ;  but 
this  would  negate  the  positing  subject  iUtelf,  as  something-in-particular,  and 
thereby  prevent  the  possibility  of  its  positing  nothing-in-particular ;  whence 
it  follows  that  negation  of  everything  in  general  is  absolutely  impossible. 
For  example,  we  may  say,  "There  is  no  such  thing  as  the  devil,"  for  this 
merely  negates  the  denotation  of  devil  as  a  particular  thing,  or  unit  of  ex- 
istence, and  does  not  negate  its  necessary  connotation  of  things  as  a  kind, 
or  existent  universe  of  units.  But  we  cannot  say,  **  There  is  no-thing  at 
all,"  for  both  the  judging  subject  and  the  judgment  itself  are  soww-things 


I 


TRADTTIONAL  ORIGIN  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS    131 

Out  of  these  necessary  results  of  analyzing  the  necessary 
conditions  of    the    problem,    however,    there    necessarily 

or  units  of  existence ;  consequently,  what  we  say  we  ourselves  unsay,  and 
what  we  try  to  say  remains  unsaid.     Hence  negation  itself  must  posit,  or 
it  cannot  negate ;  it  must  connote  things,  or  it  cannot  denote  anything. 
There  is,  therefore,  a  measure  of  truth  in  Hegel's  conception  of  Negation 
as  not  ein  letres  Nichis,  die  Leerheit,  or  das  reine  NicJUs,  but  rather  as  das 
Nichts  dessejiy  woraus  es  resuUirt,  as  hcstimtnle  Negation,  or  as  the  Nothing' 
which  ist  ein  hestimmtes  und  hat  einen  Inhalt.     His  famous  "dialectical 
movement,"  which  consists  essentially  in  Position,  Negation,  and  Nega- 
tion of  Negation  as  New  Position,  and  thereby  perpetuates  itself  through 
an  inner  necessity  of  generating  a  new  object  out  of  the  old,  is,  he  main- 
tains,  •*  not  a  merely  negative  movement ; "  the  result  of  each  new  triad  is 
not  "pure  Nothing,"  not  "the  empty  Nothing,"  but  rather  "the  deter- 
minate Nothing  which  has  a  Content ; "  and  each  new  Position,  developed 
by  this  double  Negation,  is  only  a  higher  moment  or  stage  in  the  progress 
towards  "  truth."    Scepticism,  he  argues,  takes  its  coarse  negations  as  the 
Nothing  of  pure  emptiness,  which  precludes  all  possibility  of  rational  ad- 
vance, whereas  his  own  successive  results,  as  "determinate  Negation  "  or 
"Nothing  with  a  Content,"  are  so  many  "new  forms  of  consciousness" 
or  "new  objects,"  whereby  knowledge  advances  through  a  succession  of 
constantly  changing  forms  to  its  final  goal  in  the  agreement  of  Concept 
and  Object,  Object  and  Concept.     (Phanomenologie  des  Geistes,  Einleitung, 
Werke,  II.  65,  71.)    But  the  "content"  of  Hegel's  "determinate  Nega- 
tion "  is  only  a  pure  th/mght-determination,  only  a  moment  or  phase  which 
is  speedily  and  completely  "sublated"  (aitfgeJwhcn)  in  the  self-transfor- 
mation of  the  Begriff,  striving  to  free  itself  absolutely  from  all  empirical 
elements;  it  is  radically  different  from  the  connotation  of  real  things  as  a 
kind,  an  existent  universe  of  units  known  both  ratimmlly  and  empirically. 
The  weakness  of  the  Hegelian  dialectic  of  Negation  is  the  fatal  weakness 
of  all  "  pure  thought "  —  namely,  the  separation  of  experience  and  reason  ; 
the  whole  movement  is  a  futile  attempt  to  eliminate  all  experience  from 
the  final  result,  and  to  end  in  Begriff  des  BcgHffes,  reine  Idee,  or  the  pure 
self-activity  of  reason  alone,  to  which,  in  each  new  triad,  the  mere  imma- 
nent "  necessity  "  of  its  own  proaedure,  which  is  to  be  absolutely  independ- 
ent of  all  experience,  becomes  itself  "the  origination  of  a  new  object 
with  a  new  essence."    Manifestly  enough,  this  is  a  theory  of  Negation 
which  is  incompatible  with  the  theory  that  both  Position  and  Negation 
equally  connote  "things   as  a  kind,"  because  they  equally  involve  the 
necessary  identity  in  difference  of  experience  and  reason,  experience  as  the 
knowledge  of  things  or  units,  and  reason  as  the  knowledge  of  kinds  or 
universals.     Prantl  half  recognizes  the  necessity  of  our  doctrine  here  in  his 
interpretation  of  Aristotle's  ovk  dvdpojTros  or  6vo/m  ddpcaroy,  when  he  saj's  : 


132 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


emerges  a  further  and  decisive  conclusion :  namely,  what- 
ever knowledge  is  possessed  of  the  marks  of  A  must  have 
originated  prior  to  setting  up  the  opposition  of  A  and 
Not- A,  and,  therefore,  cannot  possibly  have  originated  in  that 
opposition  itself.  For,  before  I  can  oppose  A  to  Not- A  as 
"things  which  are  A"  to  "  things  which  are  not  A,"  I  must 
already  know,  not  only  that  things  exist,  as  a  divisible 
universe  of  units  (§  72,  6),  but  also  that  certain  marks 
exist  in  A,  as  one  class  of  things,  which  do  not  exist  in 
Not-A,  as  another  class  of  things.  Otherwise,  I  cannot 
possibly  negate  A  in  Not-A,  or  set  up  the  opposition  at  all. 
This  prior  knowledge  in  the  negatiug  subject  is  the  abso- 
lutely necessary  condition  of  the  negation  itself.  In  the 
very  opposition  of  A  and  Not-A,  there  are  logically  involved 
three  positioyis:  (1)  knowledge  of  a  divisible  universe  of 
units  ;  (2)  knowledge  of  certain  units.  A,  as  a  part  or  ele- 
ment of  it ;  and  (3)  knowledge  of  other  units,  Not-A,  as 
the  residue  of  it.  These  three  positions  are  three  absolute 
conditions  of  the  division  or  opposition  itself ;  negation  of 
any  one  of  them  would  render  the  opposition  impossible. 
A  posits  and  denotes  something  already  knoimiy  namely, 
"things  which  are  A;"  Not-A  contraposits  and  denotes 
something  else  already  known,  namely,  "  things  which  are 
not  A ; "  and  this  knowledge,  in  both  cases,  is  the  condition, 
not  the  consequence,  of  the  opposition  as  such.  Clearly, 
the  opposition  can  originate  in  me  no  knowledge  of  A 
which  I  did  not  bring  to  the  opposition  itself.  Knowledge 
of  A  is  (1)  the  absolute  privs  or  condition  of  (2)  the  nega- 
tion of  A  in  Not-A  and  (3)  the  opposition  of  Not-A  to  A, 
as  dichotomy  or  division  of  the  universe.  Consequently, 
knoivledge  of  A  cannot  jmssihly  originate  in  an  opposition 
which  itself  dejyends  on  that  very  knowledge. 

"After  abstraction  of  all  that  which  is  'man,*  there  remains  real  a  residue 
of  the  existent,  although  not  so  great,  yet  always  positive,  which  as  sucli 
is  likewise  a  unity,"  —  which  is  the  manifest  meaning  of  Aristotle's  cited 
words,  tv  ydp  irwj  fftfixalvii  koI  rb  ddpiarov.  (Geschichte  der  Logik  im 
Abendlande,  I.  143,  145.) 


TRADITIONAL  ORIGIN  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS     133 

§  68.   The   bearings   of    this   result    on    the   traditional 
account  of  the  origination  of  self-consciousness  in  the  oppo- 
sition of  Ego  and  Non-Ego  are  plain  enough.     The  Ego 
cannot  possibly  originate  knowledge  of  itself  in  itself  by 
setting  up  an  opposition  which  is  conditioned  on  its  own 
prior  possession  of  that  very  knowledge.     It  cannot  origi- 
nally discover  itself  to  be  conscious  by  discovering  sur- 
rounding objects  to  be  unconscious;    on  the  contrary,  it 
cannot  discover  these  to  be  unconscious,  unless  it  has  al- 
ready discovered  itself  to  be  conscious,  and  thereby  learned 
the  ground  of  the  difference  between   consciousness  and 
unconsciousness.     For  A   nmst    be    known   before  Not-A 
can   be    known;    knowledge    of    likeness   (*' things   which 
are  A ")  necessarily  precedes  and  conditions  knowledge  of 
unlikeness  ("things  which  are  not  A'^.     Hence  the  Ego 
must  have  discovered  so7ne  things  to  be  like  itself  (con- 
scious) before  it  can  possibly  discover  other  things  to  be 
U7dike  Itself  (unconscious) ;  it  must  have  discovered  itself 
to  be  one  of  a  kind  (conscious  things)  before  it  can  possibly 
discriminate  itself  from  o7ie  of  another  kind  (unconscious 
things) ;  it  must  have  arrived  at  knowledge  of  other  Egos 
(the  We)  before  it  can  possibly  oppose  itself  to  the  Non- 
Ego   (the  World).     Consequently,  just  as   any  two  con- 
stitutive factors  condition  their  own  product  and  thereby 
condition  each  other  as  factors,  so  race-consciousness  and 
self-consciousness,  the  two  constitutive  factors  of  personal 
consciousness,  must  have  been  already  evolved  pari  passu 
in  the  nascent   Ego,  before   the  Ego  itself,  as  developed 
personal  consciousness,  can  possibly  set  up  the  antithesis 
of  Ego  and  Non-Ego  in  any  sense  whatever.    Self-conscious- 
nesSf  therefore,  cannot  possibly  originate  in  that  a^itithesis 
as  such. 

In  fact,  however,  the  simultaneous  prior  appearance  of 
these  two  factors  in  personal  consciousness  is  itself  the 
antithesis  of  Ego  and  Non-Ego  in  its  germinal  form: 
namely,  antithesis  of  My-Consciousness  and  Another-Con- 
sciousness  in  the  We.     For  it  is  only  as  "  My  Self  as  One 


134 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


of  the  We "  that  the  Ego  can  discover  its  own  unity  or 
think  itself  as  a  unit  at  all ;  yet  not  till  it  has  discovered 
its  own  unity  and  thought  itself  as  a  unit  can  it  make  itself 
a  unitary  term  in  any  antithesis  or  any  relation  whatever. 
However  obscure,  rudimentary,  instinctive,  or  even  pos- 
sibly ante-natal,  the  original  act  of  generic  unity  of  apper- 
ception may  be,  it  appears  that  the  necessary  fundamental 
opposition  of  My-Consciousness  (the  babe)  and  Another- 
Consciousness  (the  mother)  is  itself  the  Ego's  discovery  of 
its  own  unity  and  the  germ  of  all  personal  consciousness 
as  /  in  the  We ;  for  the  babe's  consciousness  buds  out  of 
the  mother's  consciousness  in  original  unconsciousness, 
and  only  gradually  differentiates  itself  from  it.  The  babe 
originates  in  the  mother,  comes  to  nascent  consciousness  or 
becomes  dimly  aware  of  itself  only  in  and  with  the  mother, 
continues  long  after  birth  to  draw  its  life  from  the  mother, 
exists  at  first  only  as  part  of  the  mother,  separates  its 
existence  from  hers  only  by  degrees,  and  cannot  possibly 
know  itself  even  rudimentarily  as  one  except  as  identical 
with,  yet  different  from,  its  otheVf  and  as  knowing  itself 
and  its  other  as  alike.  Its  awareness  of  itself  as  one  is  its 
awareness  of  itself  and  its  mother  as  two  —  its  generic  unity 
of  apperception  as  prius  of  its  synthetic  unity  of  appercep- 
tion, and  vice  versa.  The  babe  cannot,  of  course,  grow  into 
a  vivid  and  distinct  consciousness  of  likeness  betiveen  itself 
and  its  mother^  as  two  of  a  kind,  except  after  innumerable 
repetitions  of  slight  and  vague  impressions,  both  prior  and 
subsequent  to  birth;  yet  this  developed  consciousness  of 
likeness,  which  is  the  only  possible  root  of  the  conscious- 
ness of  personal  unity  as  "  One  of  the  We,"  must  precede 
all  consciousness  of  its  mere  negation  as  unlikeness,  and 
must,  therefore,  lie  at  the  bottom  of  the  antithesis  of  Ego 
and  Non-Ego  as  unlike.^    Again,  therefore,  it  appears  that 

1  **  Our  knowledge  commences  with  the  confused  and  complex,  which, 
as  regarded  in  one  point  of  view  or  another,  may  easily  be  mistaken 
for  the  individual  or  for  the  general.  The  discussion  of  this  problem 
belongs,  however,  to  Psychology,  not  to  Logic.     It  is  sufficient  to  say 


TRADITIONAL  ORIGIN  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS     135 

self-consciousness  cannot  possibly  originate  in  that  antithesis 
as  such;  for  that  antithesis  itself  originates  in  the  earlier 
and  germinal  antithesis  of  My-Consciousness  and  Another- 
Consciousness,  as  tivo  that  are  alike,  yet  not  one  and  the 
same,  in  which  the  real  unity  of  self-consciousness  as  "  One 
of  the  We  "  must  be  primarily  evolved. 

This  fundamental  opposition  of  My-Consciousness  and 
Another-Consciousness,  transmitted  potentially  or  implic- 
itly by  heredity  and  developed  actually  or  explicitly  by 
personal  growth,  is  itself,  likewise,  the  emergence  of  race- 
consciousness,  or  consciousness  of  the  unity  of  the  We  as 
One  Kind  ("  things  which  are  A  ").  As  implicit  or  poten- 
tial, race-consciousness  goes  down  from  generation  to  gen- 
eration, is  the  same  in  all  generations  and  all  individuals, 
and  constitutes  the  unbroken  continuity  of  all  human  life'. 
As  explicit  or  actual,  it  rises  simultaneously  with  its 
co-factor,  self-consciousness,  into  personal  consciousness, 
which  is  never  duplicated,  but  constitutes  the  real  individtL 
ality  of  each  human  life.  As  the  hundred-eyed  Argus  who 
watched  lo  in  her  wanderings  closed  only  two  of  his  eyes 
in  sleeping,  while  all  the  rest  of  them  remained  awake,  so 
the  imperishable  race-consciousness  of  mankind  sleeps  for 
a  while  in  the  birth  of  the  babe,  but  wakes  during  the 
life-time  of  all  adults.  Kay,  the  rhythmical  periodicity  of 
personal  consciousness  itself,  which  sinks  into  unconscious- 
ness at  night  and  renews  itself  in  the  morning,  is  but  the 
repetition  in  miniature  of  the  larger  periodicity  of  race- 
consciousness,  which  goes  to  sleep  in  the  origination  of  a 

in  general  that  all  objects  are  presented  to  us  in  complexity ;  that  we 
are  at  first  more  struck  with  the  points  of  resemblance  than  with  the 
points  of  contrast ;  that  the  earliest  notions,  and  consequently  the  earliest 
terms,  are  those  that  correspond  to  this  synthesis,  while  the  notions  and 
the  terms  arising  from  an  analysis  of  this  synthesis  into  its  parts,  are 
of  a  subsequent  formation."  (Sir  William  Hamilton,  Logic,  156,  157.) 
This  goes  to  corroborate  the  position  taken  in  the  text  above,  that  the 
resemblance  between  the  mother  and  the  babe,  as  like  in  kind,  must  be 
apprehended  sooner  than  the  contrast  between  the  babe  and  (say)  its 
rattle,  as  imlike  in  kind. 


136 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


new  human  being  and  reawakens  in  his  gradual  evolution. 
There  are  defects  in  the  analogy,  but  they  are  immaterial. 
Personal  consciousness  —  the  unique,  original,  and  incom- 
municable individuality  of  a  real  I  — is  that  identity  in 
difference  of  hereditary  race-consciousness  and  spontaneous 
self-consciousness  by  which,  when  rationally  comprehended, 
a  real  I  knows  the  We  to  be  immanent  in  all  of  its  own 
units  as  a  whole,  and  both  immanent  and  transcendent  in 
each  of  its  units  as  a  part ;  it  is  essentially  the  I's  knowl- 
edge of  itself  as  a  unit  in  its  own  universal  plus  its 
knowledge  of  itself  as  a  universal  in  all  its  own  units 
(§  63),  that  is,  as  /  in  the  We.  For  "  I  and  Another " 
are  «We,''  no  less  than  "I  and  a  thousand  million 
Others;"  and  the  discovery  that  "I  and  Another"  are 
alike,  that  is,  two  of  a  kind,  is  itself  the  discovery  of  / 
in  the  TFe  — the  emergence  of  personal  consciousness  out 
of  unconsciousness. 

This  principle  that  both  the  essential  factors  of  personal 
consciousness  originate,  not  in  the  later  antithesis  of  Ego 
and  Non-Ego,  but  in  the  earlier  and  germinal  antithesis  of 
My-Consciousness  and  Another-Consciousness,  is  a  rational 
or  necessary  result  of  the  scientific  theory  of  universals,  of 
which  our  entire  doctrine  of  the  real  I  is  simply  an  illus- 
tration and  direct   practical   application.     But  it  stands, 
likewise,  in  complete  accordance  with  the  facts  of  experi- 
ence.   On  the  one   hand,  the   psychical  dualism  of  My- 
Consciousness  and  Another-Consciousness,  as  the  origin  of 
all  personal  consciousness  in  the  knowing  and  knowable  I, 
repeats  and  illumines  the  physical  dualism  of  germ-cell 
and  sperm-cell,  as  the  origin  of  the  knowable  I  itself. 
That  is,  just  as  life  itself  originates  in  the  dynamical 
correlation  of  two  sexes,  so  all  personal  consciousness  of 
that  life  originates  in  the  dynamical  correlation  of  two 
consciousnesses.     True,  in  the  origination  of  life  as  such, 
the  two  (the  parents)  originate  a  third  distinct  from  both 
(the  child),  while,  in  the  origination  of  personal  conscious- 
ness, the  two  (mother  and  child)  originate  simply  a  higher 


TRADITIONAL  ORIGIN  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS     137 

form  of  life  in  one  of  that  two  (the  child),  since  personal 
consciousness  is  a  more  highly  evolved  form  of  life  than 
organic  unconsciousness.     This   difference,  indeed,  in  the 
two   cases,   brings   out  the    fact   (in   itself  a  profounder 
enigma  than  the  riddle  of  the  Sphinx)  that  in  all  personal 
consciousness  the  subject  must  become  an  object  to  itself. 
But  this  very  fact  shows  the  emergent  personal  conscious- 
ness as  itself  a  third,  a  resultant  of  the  two;  that  is,  the 
simple  co-ordination   of  My-Consciousness  and  Another- 
Consciousness   results   in  My-Personal-Consciousness  as  / 
in  the  We.     Hence  the  difference  in  no  degree  impairs  the 
analogy,  or  weakens  its  corroborative  force  as  a  verification 
of  reason  by  experience.     On  the  other  hand,  just  as  per- 
sonal consciousness  originates  in  the  germinal  antithesis 
of  My-Consciousness  and  Another-Consciousness  as  mother 
and  child,  so  it  culminates  in  the  crowning  antithesis  of 
My-Consciousness  and  Another-Consciousness  as  husband 
and  wife.     Lifelong  love  between  two  I's  is  the  supreme 
personal  relation  in  the  We;  true  marriage  is  the  condition 
of  the  highest  possible  development  of  human  individuality. 
This  is  not  the  place  to  dwell  on  these  truths;  but  it  is 
necessary  to  point  out  in  this  connection  that  the  funda- 
mental dualism  which  marks  both  the  origination  and  the 
culmination  of  personal  human  life,  as  such,  marks  no  less 
the  origination  of  all  personal  consciousness   of  that  life. 
The  human  I  begins  in  the  We  as  two  (fatlier  and  mother) 
learns  to  know  itself  in  the  We  as  two  (mother  and  child)' 
and  achieves  its  own  highest  individuality  in  the  We  as 
two   (husband  and  wife);  and  these  facts  of  experience 
powerfully  confirm  the  truth  of  reason  that  the  human  I 
can  neither  be  born,  nor  come  to  personal  consciousness, 
nor  realize  its  destiny,  except  as  /  in  the  We, 

§  69.  Further,  solely  out  of  the  I's  knowledge  of  itself 
as  I  in  the  We  can  spring  its  knowledge  of  itself  as  I  in  the 
World, 

Both  My-Self  and  Another-Self,  considered  merely  as 
units  of  existence,  are  things  ;  My-Self  is  one  thing,  and 


138 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


Another-Self  is  another  thing.    This  opposition  of  Mj-Self 
and  Another-Self,  in  which  the   generic   unity  of  apper- 
ception must  originally  manifest  itself  as  that  confluence 
of  heredity  and  spontaneity  which  is  the  genesis  of  per- 
sonal consciousness,  constitutes   necessarily  the   germ  of 
all  real  self-knowledge  as  /  in  the  We,     For  every  nascent 
or  potential   I  that  learns   by  experience  to   distinguish 
itself  from  another  I  becomes   in  that  very  distinction, 
and  only  in  that  distinction,  an  actual  /  in  the  We,  a  con- 
scious thing  in  its  kind.     A  conscious  thing,  as  one  of  a 
kind,   is    possible    only   through    another   of   that   kind; 
there  must  be  two  of  them,  at  the  very  least,  or  there 
cannot  be  one  of  them;  and  two  conscious  things  which  are 
conscious  of  each  other  already  constitute,  so  far,  a  kind 
of  conscious  things.     But,  similarly,  a  kind  is  possible  only 
through  another  kind;  there  must  be  two  kinds,  at  least, 
or  there  cannot  be  one  kind.     A  kind  of  conscious  things, 
however,  can  have  no  other  kind  than  a  kind  of  unconscious 
things;  for,  from  the  nature  of  the  opposition  of  A  and 
Not-A,  these  two  kinds  of  things  together  constitute  all 
things  as  a  whole,  that  is,  as  the  World.     In  other  words, 
out   of  the   primary  consciousness   of  other  things  of  the 
same  kind  as  myself  there  springs  necessarily  the  secondary 
consciousness  of  another  kind  of  things  than  my  kind,  and 
hence  that  of  the  difference  or  unlikeness  between  conscious- 
ness and  unconsciousness y  as  marks  of  the  two  great  kinds 
which  divide  the  universe.     However  difficult  it  may  be  to 
observe  the  actual  beginnings  of  personal  consciousness  in 
others  or  to  remember  them  in  ourselves,  it  is  obvious  that, 
whatever  may  be  the  psychological  evolution,  the  logical 
and  philosophical  order  requires  that,  before  I  can  distin- 
guish  "things   which  are    A*'    (conscious   things)    from 
"things  which  are  not  A"  (unconscious  things)  as  unlike 
classes,   I    must  have  already  learned  to  class   together 
"  things  which  are  A  "  (My-Self  and  Another-Self)  as  like 
units.     The  necessity  of  this  logical  order  is  our  only 
guide  in  the  investigation  of  facts  so  obscure  as  these. 


TRADITIONAL  ORIGIN  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS    139 

Thus  the  opposition  of  My-Self  and  Another-Self  be- 
comes the  germ  of  the  opposition  of  the  I  and  the  Not-I. 
But,  it  is  evident,  in  this  Not-I  must  be  included  (1)  All 
Other  I's,  and  (2)  All  Other  Things  than  I's. 

So  understood,  the  opposition  of  I  and  Not-I  constitutes 
the  Empirical  Antithesis,  in  which  the  individual  human  I, 
as  a  mere  unit  of  existence  or  thing,  opposes  itself  to  all 
other  things,  whether  these  in  themselves  are  I's  or  Not-I's. 
It  is  a  real  antithesis,  indeed,  yet  one  which,  being  founded 
solely  on  the  experience  and  recognition  of  individual  con- 
scious existence  as  a  unit  or  thing,  and  on  complete  neglect 
of  the  rational  universality  of  that  existence  as  one  of  a 
kind,  is  neither  critical  nor  scientific.     That  is,  although  it 
is  entirely  accurate,  and  constitutes  to  that  extent  the  only 
scientific  form  of  the  antithesis  of  Ego  and  Non-Ego,  it 
possesses  no  particular  scientific  utility,  because  it  disre- 
gards the  natural  and  logical  laws  of  scientific  classification. 
It  divides  the  universe,  to  be  sure,  yet  on  no  rational  prin- 
ciple, since  it  opposes  one  unit  of  a  kind  to  all  other  units 
of  that  kind,  indiscriminately  mixed  and  grouped  together 
with  all  units  of  the  only  alternative  kind.     The  confusion 
and  unscientific  character  of  this  purely  naive  opposition 
are  obvious;  and  it  has  begotten  innumerable  confusions 
in  philosophy. 

The  necessity  of  getting  rid  of  this  confusion  leads  to  the 
correction  of  the  Empirical  Antithesis  by  re-grouping  the 
units  of  existence,  or  things  in  general,  according  to  their 
natural  kind-relations.  In  this  way,  the  Empirical  Anti- 
thesis of  I  and  Not-I  is  inevitably  evolved,  in  the  philo- 
sophic mind,  into  the  Rational  Antithesis  of  We  and  Not-  We, 
in  which  the  We,  as  a  real  universal  or  kind  of  conscious 
things,  opposes  itself  to  the  only  alternative  kind  of  uncon- 
scious things,  as  the  Not- We.  This  is  the  natural  and 
rational  opposition  to  All  I's  and  All  Not-I's  which  opposes 
all  units  of  one  kind  to  all  units  of  the  only  alternative 
kind,  and  now  becomes  the  scientific  antithesis  of  the  sphere 
of  consciousness  and  the  sphere  of  unconsciousness.     This 


140 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


opposition  of  the  We  and  the  Not- we,  the  Conscious  and  the 
Unconscious,  framed  in  strict  accordance  with  the  scientific 
theory  of  universals  and  its  fundamental  principle  of  the 
identity  in  difference  of  experience  and  reason  in  all  human 
knowledge,  divides  the  universe  into  two  real  kinds  of 
things,  which  together  equal  all  units  of  existence  as  Things 
in  the  World, 

Thus  out  of  the  I's  knowledge  of  itself  as  I  in  the  We 
springs  its  knowledge  of  We  in  the  World^  and,  therefore, 
of  itself  as  1  in  the  World, 

§  70.  In  consideration  of  the  interests  of  exact  thinking, 
it  is  to  be  regretted  that  two  real  oppositions  so  obvious  in 
themselves  —  namely,  the  empirical  antithesis  of  I  and 
Not-I  and  the  rational  antithesis  of  We  and  Not- We  — 
should  have  been  so  long  disregarded  or  confused.  But  it 
is  by  no  means  to  be  wondered  at.  The  long  struggle  in 
philosophy  since  Bacon  and  Descartes  between  empiricism 
and  rationalism,  growing  out  of  the  uncritically  assumed 
and  strangely  uncontested  possibility  of  separating,  instead 
of  merely  distinguishing,  the  two  inseparable  elements  of 
experience  and  reason  in  human  knowledge,  led  inevitably 
to  two  other  oppositions,  in  themselves  thoroughly  one- 
sided and  unscientific. 

Empiricism,  denying  with  Hume  all  knowledge  not  de- 
rived from  sensuous  experience,  and  therefore  all  knowledge 
of  necessity  and  strict  universality,  starts  with  the  Ego  as 
the  purely  empirical  I  or  mere  "  succession  of  perceptions," 
which  it  conceives  to  be  all  that  is  real  in  it.  Yet  to  this 
non-universalized  content  of  the  purely  individual  conscious- 
ness it  opposes,  naively  and  inconsistently,  the  Non-Ego  as 
the  universalized  world  of  unconsciousness,  without  consid- 
ering that  (unless  it  should  seek  refuge  in  solipsism,  which 
it  never  does)  the  opposition  thus  set  up  leaves  no  place 
in  either  term  for  the  "  succession  of  perceptions  "  in  any 
other  Empirical  /,  and  altogether  fails,  therefore,  to  divide 
the  universe.  Clearly,  the  origin  of  self-consciousness  can 
never  be  logically  derived  from  the  antithesis  of  Ego  and 


I 


TRADITIONAL  ORIGIN  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS    141 

Non-Ego,  when  conceived  so  loosely  and  illogically  as  that 
of  the  empirical  I  and  the  Not- We.* 

Rationalism,  on  the  other  hand,  denying  with  Kant  that 
knowledge  can  be  derived  at  all  from  sensuous  experience 
or  perception  as  such,*  starts  with  the  Ego  as  the  purely 
rational  I  or  mere  «  synthetical  unity  of  api)erception  *'  — 
the  real  fountain  of  "  pure  knowledge  a  priori,"  not  as  the 
empty  form  of  objectless  or  merely  possible  concepts,  but 
as  the  filled  form  of  actualized  concepts  in  mathematics  and 
physics  — the  pure  "understanding  itself,"  which  creates 
all  concepts  out  of  the  pure  or  impure  intuitions  of  the 
sensibility  as  its  proper  «  object "  —  the  original  and  spon- 
taneous universalizing  act  of  transcendental  synthesis,  or  a 
priori  conjunction  of  the  manifold  —  the  universal  rational 
consciousness   itself,  abstracted  from   the   empirical   con- 
sciousness and  absolutely  pure  from  all  empirical  elements. 
This  Pure  I  (reines  Ich)  is  that  common  element  of  spon- 
taneous  transcendental  self-activity,   that  essential  com- 
munity of  nature,  which  is  inherent  in  every  Empirical  I 
[der  mit   Vemunft  hegabte  Sinnenmensch),  and  which,  ac- 

1  "  Die    Gegenseitigkeit  von   Ich  und    Nicht-Ich,   von  Gefiihl    und 
Empfindung,  von  Triebund  Widerstand,  Action  und  Reaction,  diese  Gegen- 
seitigkeit ist  das  ursprunglich  Gegebene  :  das  Bemtsstscin  existirt,  cogita- 
tioest.     Die  aussere  Erfahrung  steht  an  Unmittulbarkeit,  Gewissheit  und 
Wirklichkeit  der  inncm  nicht  nach.     Das  Dasein  von  etwas  Acusserem, 
von  niir  Verschiedenem  ist  so  wenig  aus  dem  Dasein  meiner  selbst  gefol- 
gert,   dass  ich  von  mir  selbst  nichts  wissen  konnte,  wenn  niclit  etwas 
Aeusseres  da  ware,  wovon  ich  raich  unterscheide."     (A.  Riehl,  Der  pliilo- 
sophische  Kriticismus,  II.  ii.  147.)     Professor  Riehl,  whose  "  critical  real- 
ism" is  somewhat  paradoxically  founded  upon  Kant's  "critical  idealism," 
cannot  justly  be  classed  with  pure  empiricists;  but  this  passage,  never- 
theless, exhibits  the  full-fledged  empiricist  antithesis,  and  derives  from  it 
the  origin  of  self.consciousness.     His  Ich  is  manifestly  conceived  as  the 
empirical  I,  while  his  Nwhi-Ich  is  no  less  cleariy  conceived  as  the  Not- 
We;   for  *' something  external  and  different  from  me"  cannot  include 
something  external  and  like  me,  i,  e.  another  I,  but  must  be  sometliing 
external  and  different  from  all  I's,  i.  e.  the  Not- We. 

*  **  In  den  Sinnen  ist  gar  kein  Uri;heil,  weder  ein  wahres  noch  fal- 
sches."    (Kant,  Kritik  der  reinen  Vemunft,  Werke,  III.  245.) 


142 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


cording  to  rationalism,  must  be  completely  abstracted  from 
the  sensibility  in  order  to  be  thought;  it  is  the  universal 
which  inheres  in  the  individual  as  such,  and  is  one  and  the 
same  in  all  individuals  (in  allem  Bewusstsein  ein  uml 
dasselhe  ist),  in  a  word,  it  is  the  pure  "consciousness-in- 
general  "  {Beivusstsem  iiberhaupt).  To  this  pure  conscious- 
ness-in-general, as  Ego,  rationalism  opposes  the  Non-Ego, 
not,  however,  as  the  negation  of  consciousness-in-general 
(which  would  be  required  by  logical  consistency),  but  rather 
as  the  negation  of  all  consciousness,  general  or  particular. 
Naively  enough,  both  empiricism  and  rationalism  conceive 
the  Non-Ego  irregularly  as  the  universalized  world  of 
unconsciousness,  and  do  not  determine  it  as  Not-A  must 
be  determined  by  A  ;  that  is,  they  posit  the  Ego  in  one 
sense,  and  then  negate  it  in  another.  Consequently,  just 
as  in  the  case  of  empiricism,  there  results  for  rationalism 
a  false  antithesis,  which  leaves  no  place  whatever  in  either 
term  for  consciousness-in- particular.  Yet  consciousness-in- 
particular  is  just  as  real  as  consciousness-in-general,  and 
must  be  equally  included  in  the  universe,  no  matter  whether 
this  is  conceived  as  real  or  ideal,  noumenal  or  phaenomenal  or 
both.  Hence  the  antithesis  of  Ego  and  Non-Ego,  conceived 
by  rationalism  as  that  of  the  Pure  I  and  the  Not- We,  is 
just  as  loose,  defective,  and  illogical  as  that  of  empiricism  ; 
it  wholly  fails  to  divide  the  universe,  and  cannot  possibly 
serve  to  explain  the  origin  of  self-consciousness. 

§  71.  The  positive  and  critical  results  of  the  last  four 
sections  are  so  important  that  they  require  to  be  set  forth 
synoptically  in  the  form  of  tables,  which  will  enable  the 
careful  reader  to  seize  and  to  fix  the  distinctions  now  drawn 
in  the  clearest  manner  possible. 

TABLE  ra 
L  Empirical  Antithesis  op  I  and  Not-I 

A.   The  I  =  Real  Unit  in  its  Real  Universal  —  My  Self  in  each  and 
all  of  My  Conscious  States  as  One  of  the  We 
=  My  Inner  World  (real). 


TRADITIONAL  ORIGIN  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS     143 

B.  The  Notrl  =  All  that  is  not  My  Self  =  All  Other  Selves  than 

My  Self  -h  All  Other  Things  than  Selves 
=  My  Outer  World  (real). 

C.  My  Inner  World  -f  My  Outer  World  =  the  Universe.     This  is 

the  only  scientific  antithesis  of  Ego  and  Non-Ego,  though  it 
possesses  no  scientific  utiUty. 

II.  Rational  Antithesis  of  We  and  Not-We 

A.  The  We  =  Real  Universal  in  All  its  Real  Units  =  All  I's  =  All 

Things  which  are  Selves  =  All  that  is  Our  Consciousnesses 
=  Our  Inner  World  (real). 

B.  The  Not-We  =  All  Not-I's  =  All  Things  which  are  not  Selves 

=  All  that  is  not  Our  Consciousnesses 

=  Our  Outer  World  (real). 

C.  Our  Inner  World  -I-  Our  Outer  World  =  the  Universe.     This 

is  the  only  scientific  antithesis  of  the  Conscious  and  the 
Unconscious. 

III.  Irrational  Antithesis  op  I  and  Not-We 

i.    Empiricist  Form:  Ego  =  Empirical  /,  Non-Ego  =  Not-We 

A.  The  Empirical  I  =  Pseudo-Units  Out  of  their  Universal  =  "  My 

Succession  of  Perceptions  "  without  "  Synthetical  Unity  of 
Apperception  " 

=  My  Inner  World  (abstract). 

B.  The  Not-We  =  Our  Outer  World  (real  or  ideal). 

C.  But  My  Inner  World  +  Our  Outer  World  do  not  =  the  Uni- 

verse. For  Your  Inner  World,  which  is  no  part  of  mine,  is 
left  out  of  the  account.     The  antithesis  is  a  false  one. 

ii.   Rationalist  Form  :  Ego  =  Pure  /,  Non-Ego  =  Not-  We 

A.  The  Pure  I  =  Pseudo-Universal  Out  of  its  Units  =  "  Synthet- 

ical Unity  of  Apperception"  without  "My  Succession  of 
Perceptions  " 

=  Pure  Consciousness-in-general  (abstract). 

B.  The  Not-We  =  Our  Outer  World  (real  or  ideal,  noumenal  or 

phaenomenal). 

C.  But  Pure  Consciousness-in-general  +  Our  Outer  World  do  not 

=  the  Universe.  For  every  Empirical  Consciousness-in- 
particular,  which  is  no  part  of  Pure  Consciousness-in- 
general,  is  left  out  of  the  account.  The  antithesis  is  a 
false  one. 


M 


I 


144 


THE   SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


§  72.  From  these  tables  and  the  tables  of  §  60  are  dedu- 
cible  certain  necessary  conclusions  which  go  far  to  dissipate 
the  fog  that  hangs  over  unmodernized  philosophy  and  hides 
from  it  very  obvious  distinctions. 

1.  The  antithesis  of  Ego  and  Non-Ego  cannot  he  scientifi- 
cally used  as  equivalent  to  that  of  the  Conscious  and  the 
Unconscious.  Nothing  but  confusion  of  the  Empirical  An- 
tithesis with  the  Rational  Antithesis  can  possibly  account 
for  the  existence  and  wide  prevalence  of  the  Irrational 
Antithesis,  which  posits  the  Ego  in  one  sense,  and  negates 
it  in  another.  The  irrationality  here  consists  (1)  in  posit- 
ing the  Ego  as  either  purely  empirical  or  purely  rational, 
that  is,  as  only  a  fragment  of  the  real  I ;  (2)  in  positing 
the  Non-Ego,  not  as  negation  of  the  Ego  already  posited, 
but  as  the  Not- We;  (3)  in  opposing  the  Ego  and  the  Non- 
Ego,  thus  misunderstood,  as  the  Conscious  and  the  Uncon- 
scious; and  (4)  in  imagining  that  this  false  and  illogical 
antithesis  of  T  and  Not-We,  this  mere  philosophical  blunder, 
is  a  philosophical  explanation  of  the  origin  of  self-conscious- 
ness. One  might  as  well  hope  (with  Plato)  to  explain  the 
origin  of  Existence  out  of  the  sterile  antithesis  of  Being 
and  Non-Being,  as  hope  (with  Fichte)  to  explain  the  origin 
of  self-consciousness  out  of  the  equally  sterile  antithesis  of 
Ego  and  Non-Ego. 

2.  The  true  origin  of  self-consciousness  and  of  race-con- 
sciousness, the  two  co-factors  of  personal  consciousness,  is 
immediately  given  neither  in  the  empirical  antithesis  of  I 
and  Not-I  nor  in  the  rational  antithesis  of  We  and  Not-We, 
but  must  be  sought  in  that  earlier,  primordial,  and  germinal 
antithesis  of  Mg- Consciousness  and  Another- Consciousness 
which  is  the  purely  positive  and  simplest  possible  con- 
sciousness of  I  in  the  We.  Both  the  I  and  the  We  must  be 
posited  before  either  of  them  can  possibly  be  negated, 
because  they  cannot  be  posited  except  in  conjunction.  The 
I  in  the  We  is,  as  it  were,  the  ultimate  molecule  of  personal 
consciousness,  to  which  self -consciousness  and  race-con- 
sciousness stand  related  somewhat  as  the  ultimate  constitu- 


TRADITIONAL  ORIGIN  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS     145 

ent  atoms,  to  abstract  either  of  which  is  to  break  up  the 
whole  essence  of  the  molecule  itself.  The  generic  unity  of 
apperception,  that  identity  in  difference  of  heredity  and 
spontaneity  by  which  the  I  and  the  We  must  be  given  to- 
gether before  they  can  be  negated  separately,  is  the  only 
principle  which  can  explain  the  origin  of  self-consciousness 
as  a  fact  of  evolution. 

3.  Both  the  empirical  and  the  rational  antitheses  illus- 
trate the  scientific  theory  of  universals,  by  which  the  real 
individual  inheres  wholly  in  its  real  universal,  while  the 
real  universal  inheres  wholly  in  all  its  real  individuals  and 
partly  in  each  of  them.  They  illustrate  it,  not  as  a  "  meta- 
physical" or  merely  abstract  theory,  but  as  a  practical 
working  method  adequate  to  all  problems,  which  is  at 
bottom  the  method  of  all  scientific  investigation,  and  will  be 
recognized  as  such  by  all  scientific  men,  when  they  rise 
above  their  own  specialties  and  come  to  sec  that  all  special 
matters  are  only  so  many  special  applications  of  the  one 
universal  method  of  universal  science  as  such  —  that  is,  of 
philosophy  itself. 

4.  The  empiricist  form  of  the  irrational  antithesis  illus- 
trates the  futility  of  the  attempt  to  get  along  with  no 
theory  of  universals  —  that  is,  to  suppress  the  real  univer- 
sal altogether  and  get  along  with  the  real  units  alone.  The 
rationalist  form  of  it  illustrates  the  futility  of  the  Aristo- 
telian theory  of  universals,  by  which  the  universal,  as  ab- 
stract common  element  or  necessary  essence,  inheres  wholly 
in  each  of  its  units,  as  the  "form"  in  the  "compound  of 
form  and  matter ;  "  while  the  individual  exemplifies  the  uni- 
versal, but  does  not  inhere  in  it,  since  the  "compound  of 
matter  and  form  "  cannot  be  in  the  "  form  "  alone.  That  is, 
the  pure  consciousness-in-general  (Bewusstsein  uberhauj^t)^ 
as  "  form"  inheres  in  every  empirical  Ego  (der  mit  Vemujift 
hegabte  Sinnenmensch)^  as  "compound  of  form  and  matter," 
—  is  identically  the  same  in  all  empirical  Egos  {in  alleni 
Bewusstsein  ein  und  dasselbe  ist), — and  is  both  expressible 

and  abstractive  as  that  universal  "I  think"  (ich  denke) 
VOL.  r.— 10 


} 


h 


144 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


§  72.  From  these  tables  and  the  tables  of  §  60  are  dedu- 
cible  certain  necessary  conclusions  which  go  far  to  dissipate 
the  fog  that  hangs  over  unmodernized  philosophy  and  hides 
from  it  very  obvious  distinctions. 

1.  The  antithesis  of  Ego  and  Non-Ego  cannot  he  scientifi- 
cally used  as  equivalent  to  that  of  the  Conscious  and  the 
Unconscious.  Nothing  but  confusion  of  the  Empirical  An- 
tithesis with  the  Rational  Antithesis  can  possibly  account 
for  the  existence  and  wide  prevalence  of  the  Irrational 
Antithesis,  which  posits  the  Ego  in  one  sense,  and  negates 
it  in  another.  The  irrationality  here  consists  (1)  in  posit- 
ing the  Ego  as  either  purely  empirical  or  purely  rational, 
that  is,  as  only  a  fragment  of  the  real  I ;  (2)  in  positing 
the  Non-Ego,  not  as  negation  of  the  Ego  already  posited, 
but  as  the  Not- We ;  (3)  in  opposing  the  Ego  and  the  Non- 
Ego,  thus  misunderstood,  as  the  Conscious  and  the  Uncon- 
scious; and  (4)  in  imagining  that  this  false  and  illogical 
antithesis  of  T  and  Not-We,  this  mere  philosophical  blunder, 
is  a  philosophical  explanation  of  the  origin  of  self-conscious- 
ness. One  might  as  well  hope  (with  Plato)  to  explain  the 
origin  of  Existence  out  of  the  sterile  antithesis  of  Being 
and  Non-Being,  as  hope  (with  Fichte)  to  explain  the  origin 
of  self-consciousness  out  of  the  equally  sterile  antithesis  of 
Ego  and  Non-Ego. 

2.  The  true  origin  of  self-consciousness  and  of  race-con- 
sciousness, the  two  co-factors  of  personal  consciousness,  is 
immediately  given  neither  in  the  empirical  antithesis  of  I 
and  Not-I  nor  in  the  rational  antithesis  of  We  and  Not-We, 
but  must  be  sought  in  that  earlier,  primordial,  and  germinal 
antithesis  of  My- Consciousness  and  Another- Consciousness 
which  is  the  purely  positive  and  simplest  possible  con- 
sciousness of  /  in  the  We,  Both  the  I  and  the  We  must  be 
posited  before  either  of  them  can  possibly  be  negated, 
because  they  cannot  be  posited  except  in  conjunction.  The 
/  in  the  We  is,  as  it  were,  the  ultimate  molecule  of  personal 
consciousness,  to  which  self -consciousness  and  race-con- 
sciousness stand  related  somewhat  as  the  ultimate  constitu- 


V 


TRADITIONAL  ORIGIN  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS     145 

ent  atoms,  to  abstract  either  of  which  is  to  break  up  the 
whole  essence  of  the  molecule  itself.  The  generic  unity  of 
apperception,  that  identity  in  difference  of  heredity  and 
spontaneity  by  which  the  I  and  the  We  must  be  given  to- 
gether before  they  can  be  negated  separately,  is  the  only 
principle  which  can  explain  the  origin  of  self-consciousness 
as  a  fact  of  evolution. 

3.  Both  the  empirical  and  the  rational  antitheses  illus- 
trate the  scientific  theory  of  universals,  by  which  the  real 
individual  inheres  wholly  in  its  real  universal,  while  the 
real  universal  inheres  wholly  in  all  its  real  individuals  and 
partly  in  each  of  them.  They  illustrate  it,  not  as  a  "  meta- 
physical" or  merely  abstract  theory,  but  as  a  practical 
working  method  adequate  to  all  problems,  which  is  at 
bottom  the  method  of  all  scientific  investigation,  and  will  be 
recognized  as  such  by  all  scientific  men,  when  they  rise 
above  their  own  specialties  and  come  to  see  that  all  special 
matters  are  only  so  many  special  applications  of  the  one 
universal  method  of  universal  science  as  such  —  that  is,  of 
philosophy  itself. 

4.  The  empiricist  form  of  the  irrational  antithesis  illus- 
trates the  futility  of  the  attempt  to  get  along  with  no 
theory  of  universals  —  that  is,  to  suppress  the  real  univer- 
sal altogether  and  get  along  with  the  real  units  alone.  The 
rationalist  form  of  it  illustrates  the  futility  of  the  Aristo- 
telian theory  of  universals,  by  which  the  universal,  as  ab- 
stract common  element  or  necessary  essence,  inheres  wholly 
in  each  of  its  units,  as  the  "  form "  in  the  "  compound  of 
form  and  matter ;  "  while  the  individual  exemplifies  the  uni- 
versal, but  does  not  inhere  in  it,  since  the  "compound  of 
matter  and  form  "  cannot  be  in  the  "  form  "  alone.  That  is, 
the  pure  consciousness-in-general  (Bewusstsein  uberhaupt), 
as  "  form"  inheres  in  every  empirical  Ego  (der  7nit  Vemunft 
hegabte  Sinnenmensch)^  as  "compound  of  form  and  matter," 
—  is  identically  the  same  in  all  empirical  Egos  (m  allem 
Bewusstsein  ein  und  dasselbe  ist), — and  is  both  expressible 
and  abstractible  as  that  universal  "I  think"  (ich  deuke) 

VOL.  I. — 10 


146 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHT 


; 


which  must  "accompany"  {begleiten)  every  one  of  my  con- 
8C10US  states  in  order  to  make  it  mine;  while,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  empirical  Ego,  or  concrete  individual,  cannot 
possibly  inhere  in  the  pure  consciousness-in-general,  or  ab- 
stract universal,  but  can  only  be  subsumed  under  it,  as  an 
example  of  it  and  empirical  consciousness  in  one.  The  fail- 
ure of  this  rationalist  form  of  the  irrational  antithesis  to 
agree  with  the  facts,  already  proved  by  the  exposure  of  the 
fourfold  irrationality  of  it  (§  72,  1),  is  simply  a  practical 
Illustration  of  the  scientific  inadequacy  of  the  Aristotelian 
theory  of  universals  itself,  and  the  practical  necessity  of 
superseding  it  with  a  better  theory. 

6.  The  three  antitheses,  taken  together  as  a  whole,  ex- 
pose the  dreary  emptiness  of  the  problem  on  which  the 
philosophical  world  has  for  two  or  three  centuries  so  pa- 
thetically wasted  so  much  genius  of  the  very  highest  order  • 
namely,  the  "problem  of  the  reality  of  the  external  world." 
All   personal  consciousness  is  primarily  or  genetically 
rooted  in  the  gradual  divergence  and  ultimate  distinction 
otthe  I  and  the  Other-I,  of  My-Consciousness  as  the  babe 
and  Another-Consciousness  as  the  mother,  which  must  con- 
dition and  antedate  the  distinction  of  the  I  and  the  Not-I 
as  A  and  Not-A  (§  68).     Yet  My-Consciousness  is  my  in- 
ternal world,  and  Another-Consciousness  is  already  another 
world,  internal  to  itself,  but  external  to  me.     Since  the  orig- 
inal germ  of  all  my  self-cognition,  and  the  prime  condition  of 
all  my  other  cognitions,  consists  in  knowing  myself  aa  I  in 
the  We,  I  cannot  possibly  have  any  personal  consciousness 
whatever, —I  cannot  possibly  become  "a  sense-man  en- 
dowed with  reason,"  an  empirical-rational  I,  a  subject  of 
actual  knowledge,  -unless  I  know,  in  one  original  and  in- 
divisible  act,  an  internal  world  in  myself  as  a  unit  and  an 
external  world  in  my  race  as  its  universal.    But,  just  aa  I 
cannot  know  myself  except  as  /  in  the  We,  so  I  cannot 
know  my  race  except  as  We  in  the  World:  that  is,  I  cannot 
know  myself  at  all  except  as  /  in  the   We  in  the  World 
(§  69).    The  "We,  and  the  We  alone,  mediates  between  knowl- 


! 


TRADITIONAL  ORIGIN  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS      147 

edge  of  ray  internal  world  (I)  and  knowledge  of  my  exter- 
nal world  (Not-I) ;  for  the  We  is  both  in  one,  as  identity  in 
difference  of  I  and  Not-I,  Nowhere,  with  my  utmost  inge- 
nuity, can  I  so  run  aline  of  logical  demarcation  between  the 
I  and  the  Not-I,  as  to  make  my  doubt  of  an  external  world 
anything  better  than  a  fooPs  doubt.  For  I  cannot  know 
the  I  as  a  unit  without  knowing  the  We  as  its  universal ; 
yet,  on  whichever  side  of  my  line  I  place  the  Other-Ps  that 
with  myself  make  up  the  We,  they  constitute  in  themselves 
a  knoivn  external  world.  If  I  place  them  with  the  Not-T, 
I  get  the  Empirical  Antithesis ;  if  I  place  them  with  the  I, 
I  get  the  Rational  Antithesis ;  if  I  evade  the  difficulty  and 
ignore  them  altogether,  I  can  get  only  the  Irrational  Anti- 
thesis, in  one  or  the  other  form.  Hence  I  conclude  that  to 
doubt  an  external  world,  at  least  from  the  vantage-ground 
of  the  scientific  theory  of  universals,  is  simply  to  fall  into 
an  abyss  of  folly.  For  I  cannot  at  the  same  time  donht  my 
external  world  as  the  We,  yet  know  my  internal  world  as  the 
I:  to  know  or  doubt  either,  I  must  know  or  doubt  both.  I 
conclude,  therefore,  that  the  absolutely  indivisible  and 
necessary  cognition  of  myself  as  I  in  the  We  in  the  World 
is  itself  the  absolutely  certain  cognition  of  an  external 
world. 

In  short,  this  so-called  "  problem  "  is  no  problem  at  all, 
except  to  the  empiricism  which  vainly  tries  to  eliminate  the 
universal,  or  the  rationalism  which  vainly  tries  to  eliminate 
the  particular,  or  the  eclecticism  which  vainly  tries  to  rec- 
oncile these  two  contradictory  attempts.  But  it  is  no 
"  problem  "  to  a  scientific  philosophy.  It  is  a  problem  gen- 
erated solely  by  an  unscientific  theory  of  universals  ;  for  the 
scientific  theory  of  universals,  applied  to  it  in  the  principle 
of  the  generic  unity  of  apperception,  is  the  scientific  solu- 
tion of  it.  This  is  easily  apparent.  It  is  a  bald  self-con- 
tradiction to  say,  "  We  doubt,  or  do  not  know,  an  external 
world; "  for  the  "We "  thus  posited  or  affirmed  is  itself,  to 
every  I,  a  world  partly  internal  and  partly  external,  and  ex- 
plicitly affirms  what  the  judgment  denies.     Nay,  it  would 


<! 


148 


TIIE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


w 


II  ) 


be  a  bald  self-contradiction  even  for  the  solipsist  (if  he 
could  be  found)  to  say,  "  I  doubt,  or  do  not  know,  an  exter- 
nal world; "  for  the  "  I "  thus  posited  means  nothing,  unless 
it  means  "One  of  the  We,"  and  it,  too,  affirms  what  the 
judgment  denies.  The  doubt  itself  is  radically  and  irre- 
deemably unphilosophic.  In  fact,  the  "problem  of  the 
reality  of  the  external  world  "  is  just  as  meaningless  as  the 
mediaeval  problem,  num  chimaera  homblnaiis  in  vacuo  possit 
comedere  secundas  inteiitiones  ;  and  the  best  disposition  of  it 
that  philosophy  could  make  would  be  to  retire  it  on  a  pen- 
sion.    It  has  served  out  its  term.^ 

§  73.  It  is  quite  conceivable,  however,  that  some  objector 
should  rise  up  to  say :  "  Your  antitheses  are  valueless,  be- 
cause they  leave  undetermined  the  relation  of  the  soul  to 
the  body.  Do  they  mean  the  I  as  soul  alone,  or  as  both 
soul  and  body  in  one  ?  Without  an  explicit  and  satisfac- 
tory answer  to  this  question,  the  antitheses  are  too  ambig- 
uous to  possess  any  real  value." 

Such  an  objection,  however,  would  spring  out  of  a  total 
misapprehension  of  the  subject.  The  question  put  is  irrel- 
evant ;  the  antitheses  hold  good,  whatever  answer  may  be 
given  to  it;  they  are  not  ambiguous  on  any  point  germane 
to  their  purpose.  If  the  body  is  an  essential  part  of  the 
Ego,  then  it  belongs  in  the  I  of  the  empirical  antithesis 

1  Both  of  the  ahove  judgments,  "  JFe  donht  an  external  world,**  '« / 
doubt  an  external  world,"  are  contradictions  per  se,  if  the  law  of  contra- 
diction, as  critically  forraulated  by  Kant,  is  valid:  **Der  Satz  nun: 
keineni  Dinge  kommt  ein  Priidicat  zu,  welches  ihm  widerspricht,  heisst 
der  Satz  des  Widcrspruchs. "  [Kr.  d.  r.  Vernunft,  Werke,  III.  148.']  The 
above  two  judgments,  in  which  the  predicate  directly  contradicts  the  sub- 
ject, are  intrinsic  contradictions,  are  made  such  by  no  judgment  external 
to  themselves,  and  are  as  absolute,  therefore,  as  that  involved  in  denial  of 
the  one  Axiom  of  Philosophy  (§  12).  Since  all  doubt  of  the  existence  of 
the  external  world  must  self-evidently  exi>ress  itst^lf  in  either  one  or  the 
other  of  them,  the  doubter,  whether  I  or  We,  is  powerless  to  say  or  even 
to  think  his  doubt  without  contradicting  himself  in  the  very  saying  or 
thinking  of  it.  If  this  is  not  a  scientific  solution  of  the  "problem,"  it 
would  be  difficult  to  state  what  is,  or  could  be. 


1 


TRADITIONAL  ORIGIN  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS    149 

and  the  We  of  the  rational  antithesis;  if  it  is  not,  then 
it  belongs  in  the  Not-I  of  the  former  and  the  Not- We  of 
the  latter.     In  either  case,  however,  these  two  antitheses 
are  completely  and  equally  true  to  experience  and  to  reason. 
They  perfectly  agree  with  the  facts,  and  they  are  logically 
valid  because,  as  A  and  Not- A,  they  divide  the  universe  • 
and  they  perfectly  subserve   the   uses   which   have   been 
already  made  of  them.      But  it  is  not  their  purpose  or 
their  function  to  answer  the  question  above  propounded. 
They  simply  determine  the  relation  of  I  and  Not-I,  We  and 
Not- We,  in  real  oppositions  which  divide  the  universe,  and 
leave  these,  as  indisputable  facts,  for  further  investigation. 
That  the  I  is  a  real  unit  and  the  We  its  real  universal,  — 
that  the  Not-I  and  the  Not-We  cannot  be  confounded  to- 
gether as  "  Non-Ego,"  except  in  ruinous  disregard  of  expe- 
rience and  reason  alike,  —  so  much  is  certain,  whether  the 
body  is  or  is  not  a  part  of  the  I.     It  cannot  but  be  that 
rigorous  regard  for  the  distinctions  established   in  these 
antitheses  will  conduce  greatly  to  a  scientific  treatment  of 
the  latter  question.     So  far  as  these  antitheses  alone  are 
concerned,  however,  this  question  is  left  open  for  strictly 
scientific  investigation ;  the  result  of  which,  if  philosophy 
is  possible  in  the  form  of  historico-literary  expression,  is 
already  indicated  above  at  the  close  of  §  25. 


n 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TRADITION 


151 


CHAPTER  VI 

ORIGIN  OF  THE  TRADITION:   THE  ARISTOTELIAN 

PARADOX 

§  74.  In  this  connection  it  only  remains  to  show,  al- 
though necessarily  at  considerable  length,  the  source  of 
that  traditional  account  of  the  origin  of  self-consciousness 
in  the  antithesis  of  Ego  and  Non-Ego  which  we  have  been 
examining  in  the  last  seven  sections.  This  could  not  be 
shown  until  the  scientific  theory  of  the  I,  as  derived  from 
the  scientific  theory  of  universals,  had  first  been  positively 
developed,  in  order  to  possess  a  scientific  basis  of  historical 
criticism  in  the  philosophy  of  philosophy. 

The  historical  root  of  the  antithesis,  as  this  has  been 
explained  and  criticised  above,  is  the  Aristotelian  theory 
of  universals.  Zeller,  than  whom  there  is  no  higher  au- 
thority on  the  history  of  Greek  philosophy,  maintains  that 
a  fundamental  and  irreconcilable  contradiction  permeates 
the  whole  system  of  Aristotle,  and  infects  it  throughout 
with  incoherence  and  want  of  precision.  This  contradic- 
tion, if  it  be  one,  lies  in  Aristotle's  two  attempts  to  deter- 
mine scientifically  the  object  of  knowledge,  now  as  the 
unit  of  conception,  or  intelligible  universal  essence  of  the 
individual  (to  ri  r/v  cTi/at,  17  Kara  tov  Xoyov  owrta,  owria  as  pure 
Form),  and  now  as  the  unit  of  existence,  or  real  individual 
substance  of  the  universal  (toSc  ti,  ovo-ta  as  union  of  Form 
and  Matter).^  Whether  tliere  exists  an  actual  contradic- 
tion between  these  two  notions  of  the  object  of  knowledge, 
it  is  not  at  present  necessary  to  decide,  as  the  question  will 

1  Ariat.  Metaph.  VI.  11,  1037  a.  29,  ed.  Rerol. :  tj  oMa  ydp  iffri  rb  ttSot 
rb  iv6v^  i^  o5  Kal  rrjs  OXrji  ij  ff^voSoi  X&yerai  ovaia.  Prantl  (Geschichte  der 
Logik  im  Abendlande,  I.  238,  Anm.  461)  and  Edwin  Wallace  (Outlines  of 
the  Philosophy  of  Aristotle,  p.  68,  n.  4)  adopt  the  reading  aOvoXot. 


^L 


come  up  again  in  a  later  chapter.  Our  present  concern  with 
the  Aristotelian  theory  of  universals  is  simply  with  reference 
to  its  effect  upon  the  concept  of  the  individual  as  such,  and 
therefore  upon  that  of  the  real  I  as  the  human  individual. 

§  75.  "  With  the  inquiry  into  universal  concepts,"  says  Zeller,^ 
"philosophy  had  taken  in  Sokrates  that  new  turn  which  not  only 
Plato,  but  also  Aristotle  essentially  followed.  From  this  fact  it 
results  that  he  universally  presupposes  the  Sokratic-Platonic  view 
of  the  nature  of  concepts  and  the  problem  of  conceptual  thought. 
But,  just  as  we  shall  hear  him,  in  his  metaphysics,  contradict  the 
Platonic  doctrine  of  the  independent  reality  of  the  universal  which 
is  thought  in  the  concept,  so  in  logic,  likewise,  he  finds  in  that 
connection  certain  stricter  determinations  necessary  for  the  treat- 
ment of  concepts.  Although  Plato  himself  had  demanded  that 
the  essential,  and  not  the  accidental,  properties  of  things  should 
be  included  in  their  definitions,  yet  he  had  at  the  same  time  hypos- 
tasized  all  universal  representations  as  [substantial  or  self-subsist- 
ent]  Ideas,  without  carefully  discriminating  between  concepts  of 
property  and  concepts  of  substance.  This  discrimination  Aristotle 
makes,  since  he  allows  nothing  but  the  individual  to  be  substance. 
He  distinguishes,  not  only  the  accidental  from  the  essential,  but 
also,  within  the  sphere  of  the  essential  itself,  the  universal  [prop- 
erty] from  the  genus,  and  both  from  the  concept  or  the  conceptual 
essence  of  things. 

"  A  Universal  is  everything  which  belongs  in  common  to  several 
things,  not  merely  by  accident,  but  in  consequence  of  their  nature 
{KaB£Kov  di  Xc'yo)  o  av  Kara  irairros  re  VTrdpxrf  Koi  Ka6^  avrit  Kai  §  avro 
—  Xeyo)  d€  KoBoKov  to  narm  fj  firjSevi  vndpxfiv).  If  this  common 
element  is  a  determination  involved  in  the  essence  [i.  e.  as  only  a 
necessary  part  of  it],  then  the  universal  is  a  property-concept  —  it 
denotes  an  essential  property ;  but,  if  it  is  itself  the  [whole]  essence 
of  the  things  concerned,  the  universal  becomes  the  Genus.  If  to 
the  common  marks  comprised  in  the  concept  of  the  genus  there 
are  added,  for  a  part  of  its  extent,  still  further  essential  marks  by 
which  this  part  is  distinguished  from  the  other  parts  of  the  same 
genus,  then  there  arises  the  Species,  which,  accordingly,  is  com- 
posed of  the  genus  and  the  specific  differences.  If,  finally,  in  this 
way  an  object  is  so  determined  by  means  of  all  its  distinctive 
marks  that  this  determination  as  a  whole  is  applicable  to  no  other 
1  Die  Philosophic  der  Griechen,  II.  ii.  203-214,  3te  Auflage. 


152 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TRADITION 


153 


object  [i.  e.  to  an  object  of  no  other  species],  then  we  obtain  its 
Concept.  The  object  of  the  concept,  consequently,  is  the  substance, 
and  indeed,  more  precisely,  the  determined  substence  or  peculiar 
essence  of  the  things;  and  the  concept  itself  is  nothing  else  than 
the  thought  of  this  essence  [der  Gedanke  dieses  Wesens  —  dpiafios 
eWt  Xoyoff  6  TO  rt  ?!/  (ivai  (TTjfiaivav].  This  thought  of  the  essence 
comes  to  pass  through  determining  the  generic  universal  more 
definitely  by  all  the  distinctive  marks  of  the  species.  According 
to  Aristotle,  however,  the  essence  of  things  lies  in  their  form 
alone,  and  with  this  alone,  therefore,  the  concept  is  concerned ;  no 
concept  can  be  framed  of  sensuous  things  as  such.  Even  if  the 
peculiar  essence  of  an  object,  and  therefore  its  concept,  also,  in- 
cludes a  determinate  relation  of  the  form  to  the  matter,  yet  there 
can  be  no  definition  of  this  sensuous  object  itself,  but  only  of  this 
determinate  mode  of  sensuous  existence  —  only  of  the  universal 
form  of  the  object  If  from  this  it  immediately  follows  that  the 
concept  does  not  relate  to  sensuous  individuals  as  such,  then  the 
A)llowing  statements  must  hold  good  of  the  individual  in  general : 
namely,  knowledge  goes  invariably  to  a  universal  —  even  the  words 
of  which  a  definition  is  composed  are  universal  designations  — 
every  concept  embraces,  or  at  least  may  embrace,  several  individ- 
uals—and, although  we  descend  to  the  lowest  species,  we  yet 
obtain  always  universal  determinations  alone,  within  which  indi- 
viduals are  no  longer  distinguished  specifically,  but  only  by  acci- 
dental marks.  Between  accidental  maiks  and  specific  differences 
lie  those  properties  which  belong  exclusively  to  things  of  a  certain 
species,  yet  without  being  contained  immediately  in  their  concept. 
These  Aristotle  calls  peculiarities  (i8ta);  in  a  wider  sense,  how- 
ever, he  includes  both  specific  differences  and  accidental  properties 
under  this  name.  What  falls  under  one  concept  is,  so  far  as  this 
is  the  case,  identical;  what  does  not  fall  under  one  concept  is 
different.  But  perfect  identity,  of  course,  also  includes  unity  of 
matter;  individuals  among  which  no  difference  of  species  exists 
are  yet  different  with  respect  to  number,  because  in  these  the  same 
concept  presents  itself  in  different  matter." 

§  76.  With  regard  to  Aristotle's  conception  of  the  indi- 
vidual as  such,  Zeller  further  brings  out  certain  involved 
and  important  consequences  with  great  distinctness,  as 
follows :  —  ^ 

1  Die  Philosophic  die  Griechen,  II.  ii.  339-344 ;  cf.  also  802. 


"Finally,  in  the  matter  alone  shall  we  be  able  to  discover  the 
ground  of  individual  existence,  at  least  in  all  the  things  which  are 
composed  of  matter  and  form.  Aristotle,  it  is  true,  did  not  express 
himself  concerning  the  principle  of  individuation  with  the  univer- 
sality and  definiteness  which  might  have  been  desirable,  and  he 
thus  bequeathed  to  his  followers  in  the  middle  ages  a  rich  oppor- 
tunity for  scientific  contention.  Besides  beings  possessing  bodies, 
he  is  acquainted,  as  we  shall  learn,  in  the  case  of  the  Deity,  the 
sphere-spirits,  and  the  rational  part  of  human  souls,  with  beings 
possessing  no  bodies  and  tainted  with  no  matter ;  and  these,  like- 
wise, we  must  consider  as  individuals.  But,  where  the  form  attains 
existence  in  a  matter,  it  is  this  matter  alone  to  which  we  can  refer 
the  fact  that  the  form  exhibits  itself  in  it  not  otherwise  than  under 
certain  limitations  and  with  certain  more  intimate  determinations 
which  are  not  contained  in  the  form  as  such,  the  pure  concept  of 
the  thing.  The  form  or  the  concept  is  always  a  universal ;  it  de- 
notes  not  a  ThiSf  but  a  Such ;  it  may  indeed  be  thought  for  itself, 
but  it  cannot  exist  for  itself  in  separation  from  things ;  no  distinc- 
tion of  species  or  form  can  be  drawn  among  the  individual  beings 
into  which  the  lowest  species  split  up  ;  individuals,  therefore,  can- 
not be  distinguished  one  from  another  except  through  their  matter 
alone.  Though  Aristotle  himself  cannot  maintain  this  position 
without  some  wavering,  yet  his  system  leaves  no  room  for  indi- 
vidual forms  of  sensuous  things.  [In  a  footnote,  Zeller  adds  con- 
clusively on  this  last  point:  ** No  place  at  all  can  be  found  in 
Aristotle  for  such  individual  forms.  For  since,  according  to  his 
well-known  principle,  the  form  neither  originates  nor  perishes, 
and  since  this  must  hold  good  of  that  form,  also,  which  as  rofic  ti 
exists  in  an  individual  being,  it  follows  that  there  would  necessarily 
belong  to  the  individual  forms  of  sensuous  things,  if  there  were 
any  such,  an  existence  separable  from  the  things  whose  form  they 
are.  But  this  is  absolutely  unthinkable  from  the  Aristotelian 
point  of  view."]  Every  individual  being,  therefore,  has  matter 
in  itself,  and  every  thing  possessing  body  is  an  individual  being : 
Aristotle  uses  *  sensuous  things*  and  *  single  things'  as  synony- 
mous. If  the  matter  accomplishes  all  this,  then  it  cannot,  one 
would  think,  be  distinguished  from  the  form  by  mere  privation 
or  potentiality  [Nochnichtsein]^  but  it  must  contribute  to  the  form 
something  positive  or  peculiar  of  its  own."  ^ 

*  In  two  long  footnotes,  Zeller  elaborately  and  effectively  defends  his 
position  that,  according  to  Aristotle,  ''only  the  matter  is  the  ground  of 


i 


154 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


§  77.  Lastly,  in  Aristotle^s  conception  of  the  I  as  the 
real  human  individual,  Zeller  recognizes  the  incoherency 
of  a  fundamental  dualism : 

-  Discerning  in  the  living  being  as  a  whole  a  gradual  develop, 
ment  to  ever  higher  life,  Aristotle  considers  the  psychical  life  of 
man,  likewise,  from  the  same  point  of  view.     The  individual  man 
mdeed,  unites  in  himself  all  kinds  of  animation.     To  the  nutritive 
soul  there  is  added  in  him  the  sensitive  and  motile  soul,  and  to 
these  two  the  rational  soul.     His  representative  faculty  advances 
from  sensation  to  imagination  and  memory,  then  to  reflection,  and. 
m  the  highest  grade,  to  pure  rational  intuition,  while  his  active 
faculty  advances  from  sensuous  desire  to  rational  will;  he  is  capa- 
ble  not  merely  of  perception  and  experience,  but  also  of  art  and 
science ;  he  raises  himself  in  his  ethical  activity  above  desire,  as  in 
this  he  raises  himself  above  the  plant-like  functions  of  nutrition 
and  propagation.     Thus,  then,  even  Aristotle  himself  condenses 
his  entire  doctrine  of  the  soul  into  a  single  proposition  :  namely, 
the  soul  IS  in  a  certain  sense  all  existing  things,  so  far  as  it  unites 
the  sensuous  and  the  intellectual  and  bears  in  itself  the  form  of  the 
one  as  well  as  of  the  other.     Naturally,  this  must  hold  good  of  the 
human  soul  first  of  all.    But,  as  we  observed  in  the  case  of  Plato 
the  defect  that  he  did  not  know  how  to  combine  his  three  parts  of 
the  soul  in  an  inner  unity,  -  nay,  that  it  scarcely  admits  of  a  doubt 
that  he  altogether  failed  to  propose  this  problem  to  himself  with 
scientific  clearness,  -so  in  the  case  of  Aristotle,  likewise,  the  same 
fact  18  to  be  regretted.     The  relation  of  the  sensitive  and  the  nutri- 

individuality;"  that  "the  form  is  a  r6Se,  so  far  as  it  exhibits  a  deter- 
mmate  kind  of  being,  but  first  becomes  the  form  of  a  determinate  ^ngle 
thing  through  combination  with  a  determinate  matter,  irrespective  of  which 
combination  it  is  a  universal ;  "  and  that,  contrary  to  Hertling's  erroneous 
conclusion,  "  the  constitutive  principle  of  individual  being  lies  in  the  mat- 
ter by  which  the  form  is  first  individualised."  (Anm.  6,  340-342  •  Anm  1 
342-343.)     Of.  IL  ii.  212-213,  Anm.  5,  where  he  says:  "Defiidtion  can 
be  continued  until  all  specific  differences  are  exhausted,  and  the  reXevrala 
Sca^popd  IS  reached  ;  but  under  this  there  still  always  remain  the  individu- 
als, which  are  no  longer  distinguishable  in  species  and  are  so  far  8fu>.a 
Yet  these  always  constitute  a  plurality,  indeed  an  indeterminate  plurality' 
and  precisely  for  this  reason  can  be  no  object  of  science  and  of  the  concept  »* 
Thus  It  results  that,  for  Aristotle,  not  only  matter  as  such,  but  also  the 
individual  as  such,  is  unknowable  in  itself. 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TRADITION 


155 


tive  soul  might  of  itself  be  enough  to  raise  the  question  whether 
the  one  is  developed  out  of  the  other,  or  whether  they  both  origi- 
nate simultaneously  and  subsist  separately  side  by  side ;  and  where, 
in  the  latter  case,  the  connection  between  them,  the  unity  of  the  ani- 
mal life,  is  to  be  sought.  Yet  this  doubt  becomes  far  more  pressing 
with  respect  to  the  reason  and  its  relation  to  the  lower  powers  of 
the  soul.  If  we  consider  the  beginning  or  the  course  or  the  end 
of  this  combination,  there  is  everywhere  revealed  an  unresolved 
dualism,  and  nowhere  do  we  obtain  a  satisfactory  answer  to  the 
question  where  the  unity-point  of  the  personal  life,  the  power 
which  holds  together  and  controls  all  parts  of  the  soul,  is  properly 
to  be  sought."  ^ 

"For  Aristotle,  the  human  being  [considered  ethically]  falls 
asunder  in  two  parts,  between  which  no  living  bond  can  be  dis- 
covered. Similar  difficulties  would  present  themselves  with  relation 
to  self-consciousness,  if  Aristotle  had  expressed  himself  on  that 
subject  with  greater  detail.  But  the  very  fact  that  he  did  not  do  this, 
—  that  he  nowhere  raises  the  question  how  we  come  to  cling  to  the 
I  as  a  permanency  in  the  changing  states  and  activities  of  life,  — 
shows  best  of  all  how  imperfectly  conscious  he  is  of  the  problem 
to  explain  the  unity  of  the  personal  life.'*  In  a  footnote:  "He 
did  not  investigate  how  the  identity  of  self-consciousness  is  to  be 
explained  in  the  different  activities  which,  indeed,  he  assigns  to 
different  parts  of  the  soul.'*  ^ 

"  As  little  as  his  metaphysics  gave  us  a  clear  and  non-contradic- 
tory explanation  of  individuality,  just  as  little  does  his  psychology 
give  us  such  an  explanation  of  personality.  As  there  it  remained 
undecided  whether  the  ground  of  individuality  lies  in  the  form  or 
the  matter,  so  here  it  remains  in  the  dark  whether  personality  lies 
in  the  higher  or  in  the  lower  powers  of  the  soul,  in  the  immortal  or 
the  mortal  part  of  our  nature.  The  correct  conclusion  is  simply 
that,  on  either  of  the  two  assumptions,  difficulties  lie  in  the  way 
which  the  philosopher  did  nothing  to  remove,  and  which,  therefore, 
he  undoubtedly  overlooked.  Reason  as  such,  the  pure  spirit,  it 
appears,  cannot  be  the  seat  of  personality,  for  it  is  the  eternal, 
universal,  and  unchangeable  in  man ;  it  is  untouched  by  the  vicis- 
situdes of  the  life  in  time,  by  birth  and  death ;  it  lives  unalterably 
in  itself,  without  receiving  external  impressions  or  transcending 
itself  in  its  activity.    On  the  contrary,  all  manifoldness,  and  all 

*  Die  Philosophic  der  Griechen,  H.  ii.  592,  593. 
2  Ihid.  H.  ii.  600-602. 


156 


TUE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


motion,  all  interaction  between  the  world  and  man,  all  change  and 
development,  in  one  word,  all  the  vitality  and  deterniinateness  of 
personal  existence,  fall  to  the  side  of  the  sensibility.  And  yet  the 
personality  of  a  rational  being  and  its  free  self-determination 
cannot  lie  in  its  sensuous  nature.  Where  it  lies,  however,  we  ask 
in  vain.  As  reason  enters  the  sensuous  soul  from  without  and 
again  separates  itself  from  it  in  death,  inner  unity  is  wanting  to 
the  two  even  during  life ;  and  what  the  philosopher  says  about  the 
passive  reason  and  the  will  is,  in  his  uncertain  treatment,  unsuited 
to  effect  a  scientific  accommodation  among  the  heterogeneous  ele- 
ments of  the  human  being.**  ^ 

**  Nothing  in  the  Platonic  system  offends  him  so  much  as  that 
dualism  of  the  Idea  and  the  Phaenomenon  which  took  so  crude  a 
form  in  the  doctrine  of  the  self-existence  of  the  Ideas  and  in  the 
reduction  of  Matter  to  the  concept  of  Not-Being.  His  complete 
transformation  of  the  Platonic  metaphysics  and  the  peculiar 
ground-concepts  of  his  own  sprang  out  of  opposition  to  this 
dualism.  But  the  more  earnestly  and  profoundly  he  struggles 
to  overcome  it,  the  less  does  he  in  truth  succeed.  He  denies  that 
the  generic  universal  is,  as  Plato  had  taught,  a  substantial  ex- 
istence ;  yet  he  maintains,  in  agreement  with  him,  th<at  all  our 
concepts  relate  to  the  universal,  and  that  the  truth  of  our  concepts 
depends  on  the  reality  of  their  object.  He  combats  the  trans- 
cendent existence  of  the  Platonic  Ideas,  the  dualism  of  the  Idea 
and  the  Phaenomenon.  Yet  he  himself,  likewise,  sets  the  Form 
and  the  Matter  over  against  each  other  in  original  disparity, 
without  deriving  them  from  a  common  ground  ;  and  in  the  fuller 
determination  of  these  two  principles  he  involves  himself  in  the 
contradiction  that  the  form,  on  the  one  hand,  should  be  the 
essence  and  the  substance  of  things,  and  yet,  on  the  other  hand, 
should  be  a  universal  at  the  same  time;  while,  on  the  contrary, 
the  ground  of  individual  existence,  and  consequently  of  sub- 
stantiality, too,  must  lie  in  the  matter.  He  objects  to  Plato  tljat 
his  Ideas  lack  moving  power;  but  no  more  can  motion  be  really 
explained  by  his  own  determinations  of  the  relation  of  form  and 
*  matter.  He  puts  the  Deity  as  a  personal  being  beyond  the  world  ; 
but,  in  order  to  resign  nothing  of  its  perfection,  he  believes  that  he 
must  deny  to  it  the  essential  conditions  of  personal  life,  and,  in 
order  not  to  involve  it  in  the  vicissitudes  of  the  finite,  he  limits  its 
efficiency,  in  contradiction  of  his  own  otherwise  more  living  con- 
1  Die  Philosophic  dor  Griechen,  II.  ii.  606,  607. 


\ 


\ 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TRADITION 


157 


ception  of  God,  to  the  initiation  of  motion  in  the  outermost  of  the 
heavenly  spheres,  and  this,  moreover,  he  so  paints  that  the  Deity 
is  thereby  exiled  into  space.  At  the  same  time  there  is  connected 
with  all  this  the  want  of  clearness  by  which  his  concept  of  Nature 
suffers :  Nature  is  described,  in  the  spirit  of  antiquity,  as  a  unitary 
puri)osive  being,  as  a  rational  all-efficient  power,  and  yet  his  system 
lacks  the  subject  to  which  these  attributes  could  be  Jiscribed.  .  .  . 
A  further  difficulty  resulted  from  the  way  in  which  Aristotle 
determined  the  conception  of  the  living  being,  and  especially 
of  man,  so  far  as  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  the  different  parts  of 
the  soul  as  inwardly  united,  and  still  more  difficult  to  explain  the 
processes  of  the  soul's  life,  if  the  soul,  like  every  other  moving 
power,  must  be  itself  unmoved.  But  this  difficulty  culminates  in 
the  problem  how  to  combine  the  reason  of  man  with  the  lower 
powers  of  his  soul  in  a  living  personal  unity,  and  to  determine  its 
share  in  his  spiritual  activities  and  states  —  to  conceive  the  pas- 
sionless and  incorporeal  essence  as  at  the  same  time  part  of  a 
soul  which,  as  such,  is  the  perfection  or  realization  [eWfX«;^«a]  of 
its  body  —  to  assign  to  personality  its  place  between  the  two  con- 
stitutive elements  of  human  nature,  of  which  the  one  stands  too 
high  for  it  and  the  other  too  low."  ^ 

§  78.  The  above  interpretations  and  conclusions  of  the 
ripest  critical  scholarship  will  be  accepted  as  authorita- 
tive; and  this  fact  is  our  excuse  for  quoting  them  so  fully 
in  extended  translations.  To  adapt  them  to  our  pres- 
ent inquiry,  however,  it  will  be  advisable  to  summarize 
Aristotle's  positions  in  a  different  form,  as  follows :  — 

I.  The  real  individual  thing  in  itself,  the  toSc  rt,  com- 
prises three  distinct  elements :  (1)  a  strictly  universal 
element  in  the  common  but  real  essence  of  the  genus; 
(2)  another  strictly  universal  element  in  the  common  but 
real  essence  of  the  species,  the  specific  difference  which 
makes  one  species  unlike  all  other  species  of  the  same 
genus;  and  (3)  a  strictly  individual  element  in  the  real 
totality  of  non-universal  and  non-essential  states,  changes, 
activities,  relations,  properties,  peculiarities,  idiosyncrasies, 
or  "  accidents  "  iu  general  —  whatever  in  fact  differentiates 

1  Die  Philosophie  der  Griechen,  II.  ii.  802,  803. 


158 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


one  individual  from  all  other  individuals  of  the  same 
species.  This  totality  of  accidents  (o-u/x)3c^i;KOTa),  though 
not  so  named  by  Aristotle,  may  for  brevity's  sake  be 
called  the  individual  or  individualizing  difference.  But 
Aristotle  himself  did  not  know  what  to  do  with  it  in  his 
system,  except  to  recognize  its  necessary  existence  and 
then  to  disregard  it  altogether;^  he  could  not  think  the 
individual  specimens  of  a  species,  except  as  an  indeter- 
minate multitude  of  units  which,  so  far  as  their  intelligible 
essence   went,  were  all  alike  and  undifferentiated  (oftota, 

dSia(^opa). 

Now  the  first  two  of  these  three  elements,  united  in  one, 
constitute  completely  the  thing's  real  and  universal  essence 
or  quiddity  (jiop<t>rj,  cTSos,  ov<r/a,  to  rt  coTt),  which  always  re- 
mains in  itself  a  pure  universal.  It  becomes  real,  however, 
only  by  becoming  immanent  (to  cTSos  to  ivov)  in  the  indi- 
vidual matter  of  the  individual  thing ;  for  the  thing  exists 
only  as  the  concrete  union  of  matter  and  form.  As  the 
thing's  real  essence  or  true  being,  the  form  is  at  once  the 
ground  of  the  thing's  existence  and  the  ground  of  its  intel- 
ligibility. But  the  third  element,  the  individual  difference, 
being  absolutely  heterogeneous  to  the  universal  form,  can 
be  referred  to  nothing  but  the  individual  matter  (y\rj)  in 
which  the  universal  form  realizes  itself.*    Hence,  as  Zeller 

^  Top.  I.  5,  102  b,  4 :  2u/i/3e/9T;<cdj  5^  iariv  6  firjSiif  fih  to^tuv  iari^  fiTjre 
6pos  tiip-e  tSiop  fxiqre  yivo%  virdpxfi  S^  t^  trpdy/JLaTi^  Kal  6  ^kS^x^^***  xnrdpx^i-v 
irrtfioOv  ivl  Kal  r^  airri^  Kal  fii]  inrdpx^^v^  olov  t6  KaBrjaOat  ivb^x^'''^^  inrdpxftv 
Tivl  T^  avT^  Kal  fi7)  virdpx^W'  Metaph.  V.  2,  1026  b.  3 :  trpCrrov  irepl  rov 
Kara  crvfi^e^riKbs  \eKT4ov,  6ti  ovSe/jUa  iffrl  -xepl  avrb  OewpLa.  ffrjfieiov  8^- 
ovSe/xiqi  ydp  iiriffTT^fixi  ^""t/xeX^s  irepl  airrov  oih-e  irpaKTiK^  oihe  iroiririK^  ovre 
0€u)pTjTLK-g  .  ,  .  Kal  Tovro  €v\br^<a%  avfxirlxret.  HxTxep  ydp  6v6/j.aTi  /xdvov  r6* 
avfipe^rjKdi  iartp.  .  .  .  <f>aiv€Tai  ydp  t6  ffvp.^^yjKb^  iyyOs  n  toO  firj  6yTos. 
,  ,  .  6  ydp  Av  tJ  /iijr  dtl  fii^d*  uis  iirl  t6  iroXi/,  tovt6  <f>afi€v  <yvp.pcprjKbs  clvai 
,  .  .  dfdyKTf  etwt  rb  Kard  avp.§€^riKb^  6v  .  ,  ,  Cxrre  if  OXi;  (arai  alrla  ^ 
ivSexop^vT)  TopA  rb  W5  iirl  rb  To\i>  AWui  rov  avpL^e^y^KbTOt  ,  ,  ,  Uri  S*  ivi- 
ar-iiixtf  oifK  Han  rov  avfji^c^TfK&TO^  <t>av€pbv.  iTriar-jfifirf  fxh  ydp  irdffa  ij  rov  del 
1j  Tov  a»$  iirl  rb  toXjJ.  \ 

2  Metaph.  V.  2,  1027  a,  13 :  dxTre  ^  CXi;  ^(Ttcu  atria  ,  ,  .  rod  avfipcpri- 
K&roi. 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TRADITION  I59 

justly  and  indeed  necessarily  concludes,  the  matter  alone 
can  be  recognized  as  the  ground  of  the  thing's  individu- 
ality _  the  ground,  that  is,  of  its  individual  difference  from 
all  other  individuals  of  its  own  species. 

Apart,  then,  from  its  immanent  universal  form,  by  which 
alone  it  can  be  understood  or  known  or  thought,  the  Aris- 
totehan  ro'Sc  t.,  or  real  individual  thing  in  itself,  fades  out 
into  a  colorless  unreality,  a  mere  arithmetical  unit  devoid  of 
all  individual  content  (ri  ip^d^ui  cV),  a  mere  specimen  of  a 
species,  differing  from  other  specimens  of  the  same  species 
in  nothing  but  matter  or  number,  in  the  sense  that  the  par- 
ticular  matter  in  it  is  not,  numerically  considered,  one  and 
the  same  matter  as  that  in  any  other  specimen.    In  fact, 
the  Aristotelian  conception  of  species  has  no  conceivable 
ground  whatever  of  any  plurality  of  specimens ;   the  ad- 
mission of  plurality  into  it  has  no  basis  but  mere  percep- 

ana  me  apiff^  ev  is  a  mere  reluctant  concession  to  common- 
sense  Since,  moreover,  matter  in  itself  is  unknowable,' 
the  individuality  or  individual  difference  which  is  grounded 
on  matter  alone  cannot  but  be  equally  unknowable.  The 
reason,  therefore,  why  Aristotle  was  compelled  to  ignore 
It  as  an  element  of  intelligible  reality,  becomes  perfectly 
obvious. 

In  this  suppression  of  the  individual  difference,  however 
part  and  parcel  though  it  is  of  the  real  essence  of  the  indi' 
vidual  thing  in  itself,  lies  the  failure  of  all  ancient  philos- 
ophy as  Begriffsphilosophie  from  Aristotle  to  Hegel  inclusive 
And  m  the  discovery  of  it,  as  the  «  advantageous  variation,'' 
lies  the  unconscious  philosophical  revolution  which  was  the 
beginning  of  a  really  modern  philosophy  in  the  Darwin- 
Wallace  principle  of  natural  selection  (§  86). 

II.  From  this  suppression  of  the  individual  difference, 
It  was  simply  a  necessary  consequence  that  there  could  be 
no  individual  form  of  the  individual  thing  {haecceitas,  So- 

A  on^'**J?'  ^'-  ^^'  ^°^^*'  ®  •"  "'  ^'  ^'^  ^^''^^''^^  '^««'  ^^^-'    Phys.  III. 

6,  207  a,  26 :  eWos  ydp  oCk  fx^i  ij  CXrj, 


160 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


cratitas).  The  rational  necessity  of  this  consequence,  as 
Zeller  points  out,  is  fully  recognized  in  the  Aristotelian 
system,  which  has  "no  room  for  individual  forms  of  sen- 
suous things,"  "no  place  at  all  for  such  individual  forms." 
The  ToSc  Tt  is  a  mere  receptacle  or  bearer  of  the  specific 
form,  which  is  a  pure  universal ;  it  is  a  mere  arithmetical 
unit  of  matter ;  it  has  no  knowable  individual  nature ;  it  is 
a  continent  of  the  universal  with  no  content  of  its  own. 

III.  From  the  fact  that  the  individual  thing  in  itself  has 
neither  individual  difference  nor  individual  essence  or  form, 
it  follows  of  necessity  that  there  can  be  no  individual  con- 
cept of  it,  that  is,  no  thought  of  it  as  an  individual  essence 
(oiKctos  Xoyo5,  notlo  individualis).  Every  concept  of  a  thing 
must  be  that  of  the  universal  essence  or  form  of  the  species 
to  which  the  thing  belongs  ;  it  must  be  applicable  to  all 
specimens  of  that  species  indifferently ;  it  cannot  be  appli- 
cable to  one  specimen  alone,  as  different  from  the  rest. 
This  consequence,  likewise,  Zeller  has  explicitly  recognized 
as  necessary,  when  he  says  above  that,  according  to  Aris- 
totle, "no  concept  can  be  framed  of  sensuous  things  as 
such." 

IV.  Further,  from  the  facts  that  the  individual  thing  in 
itself  has  no  intelligible  individual  difference,  and  therefore 
no  individual  form,  and  therefore  no  individual  concept,  it 
follows,  of  course,  that  there  can  be  no  definition  of  it;  for 
the  definition  is  simply  expression  of  the  concept.^  This 
consequence,  also,  is  explicitly  drawn  by  Zeller,  when  he 
says  that  "  there  can  be  no  definition  of  this  sensuous  object 
itself,  but  only  of  its  determinate  mode  of  existence  —  only 
of  the  universal  form  of  the  object." 

V.  How,  then,  is  Aristotle's  toSc  rt,  the  individual  thing 
in  itself,  to  be  known  at  all  ?  The  only  possible  answer 
to  this  query  is  that,  according  to  Aristotle  himself,  the 
individual  thing,  (pm  individual,  is  completely  unknowable.* 

1  Metaph.  VI.  15,  1039  b,  28  :  tw*/  ovaiuv  tQu  aladrrruv  rvv  Ka0'  ^Kaara 
oifd'  optfffxbi  ovT*  cLTdSei^lt  icmv. 

2  M«'tai)li.  II.  4,  999  a,  26  :  efre  yhp  fi^  iffn  rt  Tcapii  rd  Kaff  Uoffra,  tA  ^ 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TRADITION 


161 

Im^I  ^'"'~^'  .^^"  ^"^^^^  P--i-^;  and  per- 
ception (a..V^.)  .s  not  scientific,  that  is,  conceptual  knowl- 

edge  {^-^^Trr^MV    All  actual  perception  is  of  particulars 

but  an  knowledge  is  of  universals  j  ^  and  the  two  I  ^ wj 

mentally  unlike  in  kind,  because,  as  we  have  seen  paSu 

lars  are  grounded  in  the  matter  alone,  while  u^i^^^^^^^^^^^ 

alone.     True,  Aristotle  holds  that  knowledge  cannot  be 
evolved  except  out  of  perception,  which,  moreover,  Ipos 
sessed  in  some   degree   by  every  living  being-  out  of 
perception  arises  memory,  out  of  many' memories  arises 
unitary  experience,  and  out  of  experience  arises  the  knowl 
edge  of  universals.^    But  the  original  perception  of  plr 
ticulars  and  the   evolved  knowledge  o?  unfversals  ha" 
nothing  m  common;  they  remain  at  last  disparate,  hetero 
geneous  separated  by  the  whole  difference  of  maUer  Ind 
form     Perception  altogether  ceases  to  be  perception,  when 
It  becomes  knowledge,  because  there  can  be  noth  n.  in 
common  between  the  ^cnknowaMe  matter,  which  is  the  ground 
of  all  perception  of  particulars,  and  the  knou^ahl! fTm, 

2  De  Anima,  II.  5,  417  b,  22 :  atnop  5'  Sn  rCv  Kad*  Uaamu  4,        *j, 

X'  .  -'I'll*,    li.    j.»,    If jf  D,    6b'.    fyet   yko   [irdura  rn    ^A«l 

*  IhU.  100  a,  3:  ^k  ^Uv  o^  alaO^aeo^s  yl.erac  f^^^rj,  <hcrTep  \4yo^,  eV 


162 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


which  is  the  ground  of  all  knowledge  of  nniversals.     The 
Aristotelian  dualism  of  perception  and  knowledge,  there- 
fore, is  absolute  and  irremediable,  because  the  toSc  ti  is 
resolved  at  last  into  nothing  but  unknowable  matter  and 
knowable  form.     Zeller  thus  sums  up  Aristotle's  doctrine 
on  the  subject:  "In  the  first  instance,  perception  has  the 
individual  as  its  content;   yet,  so  far   as  there  is  always 
contained  in  the  individual  tbe  universal  also,  though  not 
yet  freed  for  itself,  perception  directs  itself  to  this  uni- 
versal, too,  through   the  medium   of  the  individual.     Or, 
more  precisely:   what  the  senses  perceive  is  not  the  in- 
dividual substance  as  such,  but  always  only  certain  proper- 
ties  of  it;    these,   however,   are   already   related    to  the 
individual   substance   as   the   universal  —  they   are  not  a 
This  (toSc),  but  a  Such  (roioVSc).     Consequently,  although 
they  are  never  perceived  under  the  form  of  universality, 
but  always  only  in  a  This,  in  an  individual  determinateness, 
yet  they  are  in  themselves  a  universal,  and  the  thought  of 
the  universal  can  be  developed  out  of  the  perception  of 
them."i    This  attempt  at  a  reconciliation,  liowever,  fails. 
If  Aristotle's  previous  determinations  stand  fast,  percep- 
tion can  no  more  "direct  itself  to  the  universal  through 
the  medium  of  the  individual "  than  the  eye  can  direct 
itself  to  a  symphony  or  the  ear  to  a  rainbow.     For  he  has 
taught  us  that  perception  apprehends  nothing  but  sensuous 
particulars,  and  stops  altogether  short  of  rational  univer- 
sal; whence,  of  necessity,  it  follows  that  the  thought  of 
the  universal  cannot  be  "developed"  out  of  perception  of 
the  particular,  but  must  originate  in  an  absolutely  new  and 
underived  element :  namely,  the  original  and  independent 
activity  of  the  reason  or  i/oOs.     If  perception  could  develop 
itself  into  knowledge,  there  would  be  no  need  of  any  vo^ 
whatever.     The  individual  thing  in  itself,  therefore,  or  the 
concrete  whole  of  form  and  matter  (rh  cV  toi;t(o».,  to  (tvVoXov, 
ToSc  Tt),  eludes  knowledge  altogether;  its  individuality  or 
individual  difference  as  such  being  unknowable,  it  can  only 
1  Die  Philosophic  der  Griechen,  IL  ii.  198. 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TRADITION 


1G3 


be  perceived,  and  nothing  of  it  can  bo  known  except  the 
universal  in  it  {rh  €T8o<:  r6  cVoV).^  As  an  object  of  percep- 
tion,  it  cannot  be  known  at  all ;  as  an  object  of  knowledge, 
it  has  lost  its  individuality  or  individual  difference  alto^ 
gether,  become  imperceptible,  and  shrunk  into  a  pure  or 
matterless  universal. 

VI.   With  these  determinations  of  the  universal  and  the 
individual  in  general,  the  Aristotelian  theory  of  universal 
may  be  fittingly  denominated  the  Aristotelian  Paradox :  (1) 
because  it  makes  the  individual  contain  the  universal,  that 
is,  the  part  contain  the  whole ;  and  (2)  because  it  makes 
the  individual  as  such  unknowable,  while  yet  it  makes  the 
universal,  which  exists  nowhere  but  in  the  individual,  the 
only  object  of  knowledge.    How  can  the  essential  universal 
which  is  to  be  retained,  and  the  non-essential  individual 
difference  which  is  to  be  discarded,  possibly  be  discrimi- 
nated one  from  the  other,  unless  both  are  equally  known? 
When  Zeller,  therefore,  as  we  have  seen,  says  that  "  Aris- 
totle did  not  express  himself  concerning  the  principle  of 
individuation  with  the  universality  and  definiteness  which 
might  have  been  desirable,"  he  quite  understates  the  fact. 
The  truth  is  that,  in  logical  agreement  with  such  a  theory 
of  universals,  no  principle  of  individuation   is  possible; 
for  any  principle  of  individuation  must  self-evidently  be 
grounded  on  knowledge  of  the  individual  difference,  and 
this  knowledge  Aristotle  denies. 

It  is  a  mere  matter  of  course,  therefore,  that,  as  Zeller 
so  plainly  shows,  the  Aristotelian  psychology  includes  no 
clear  doctrine  of  human  individuality,  as  the  real  I  or  per- 
son as  such,  —  no  clear  doctrine  of  personality  or  personal 

>  When  Aristotle  says,  De  Anima,  III.  8,  432  a,  5:  ip  ro?s  eldeffi  rots 
ahSyfTOiSTd.  porjrd  itrri,  it  is  evident  that  lie  uses  the  word  eZSos  here,  not 
m  Its  philosophical,  but  merely  in  its  popular  meaning  as  the  form  which 
is  physically  visible  and  perceived  in  the  object  of  sense.  For,  having 
just  said  that  "perception  is  the  form  of  things  perceived "  (77  aUd-qat^ 
eWos  alfferrrGiv),  it  naturally  follows  that  the  "form  of  things  perceived" 
is  ''perceived forms "  —  that  is,  elSos  in  its  popular  meaning.  It  would  be 
nonsense  for  Aristotle  to  say,  iv  rotj  vottto'i^  roh  alaerjroh  to.  vo-qTo.  eart. 


/ 


164 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPUY 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TRADITION 


1G5 


unity  or  personal  identity  at  all,  whether  human  or  divine. 
All  that  is  clear  is  that  the  empirical  I  and  the  rational  I, 
the  6  Tis  avOpomoi:  and  the  voOs,  are  left  divided  by  the  chasm 
of  an  "  unresolved  dualism,"  grounded  in  that  of  matter 
and  form  ;  and  that,  until  this  dualism  is  resolved,  no  scien- 
tific theory  of  the  real  I  is  at  all  possible.  The  absence  of 
such  a  theory  in  Aristotle's  system,  therefore,  is  the  nec- 
essary consequence  of  the  Aristotelian  Paradox. 

§  79.   This  "  unresolved  dualism  "  in  Aristotle,  however, 
was  itself  a  necessary  consequence,  a  legitimate  inheritance 
of  the  past.     It  was  simply  the  best  answer  he  could  give 
to  the  problem  with  which  Greek  philosophy  wrestled  from 
its  birth :  namely,  the  problem  how  to  discover  the  One  in 
the  Many,  the  eternal  unity  in  the  eternal  diversity  of  the 
world.     Crude  attempts  to  find  the  principle  of  the  One  in 
the  Many  —  as  water  (Thales),  as  undifferentiated  and  in- 
definite matter  (Anaximander),  as  air  (Anaximenes),  as 
number  or  harmony  (the  Pythagoreans),  as  fire  or  eternal 
flux  of  all  things  (Herakleitos),  as  love  and  hate  among 
the  four  elements  of  earth,  water,  air,  and  fire  (Empedokles), 
as  mind  unmixed  with  matter  (Anaxagoras)  —  led  naturally, 
on  the  one  hand,  to  denial  of  the  Many  by  the  Eleatics 
(Xenophanes,  Parmenides,  Zeno),  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
to  denial  of  the  One  by  the  Atomists  (Leukippos,  Demok- 
ritos),  or  else  to  despair  of  all  objective  knowledge  of  either 
the  One  or  the  Many  in  the  Sophists  (Protagoras,  Gorgias, 
Prodikos).    Out  of  this  despair  Sokrates  found  an  escape, 
through  the  dialectical  and  inductive  formation  of  concepts' 
in  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  of  objectively  valid  uni- 
versals  —  in  the  conceptual  grasp  and  definition  of  univer- 
sals  as  objective  realities  in  the  world.*    But  in  this  way 

1  Zeller,  Die  Philosophie  der  Griechen,  II.  i.  107:  *' Diese  Nothigung 
aber  lag  fiir  Sokrates  in  dem  Grundsatz,  welchen  die  zuverlassigsten 
Benchte  mit  grosser  Einstimmigkeit  als  die  Seele  seines  Philosophirens 
hervorheben,  dass  jedes  wahre  Wissen  von  richtigen  Begriffen  auszugehen 
habe,  dass  nichts  erkannt  werden  konne,  wenn  es  nicht  auf  seinen  allge- 
memen  Begriff  zuruckgefuhrt  und  aus  ihm  heraus  beurtheilt  werde."  — 


the  original  dualism  of  the  One  and  the  Many  was  simply 
transferred  from  the  sphere  of  being  to  the  sphere  of 
thought,  and  soon  developed  into  the  correlative  dualism 
of  sense  and  intellect,  as  conversant  respectively  with  a 
world  of  sensibles  (koV/xos  aWBriroi)  and  a  world  of  intelli- 
gibles  (kcmt/xos  vorp-os).    Sense  alone  perceives  the  individuals, 
or  the  Many ;  intellect  alone  knows  the  universal,  or  the 
One;   each  acts  in  complete  independence  of  the  other. 
This  epistemological  dualism  of  the  Sokratic  concept-phi- 
losophy  is  the  absolute  separation  of  experience  and  reason  ; 
and  in  it,  as  a  germinal  principle,  lies  implicitly  the  whole 
history  of  philosophy  down  to  the  very  end  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.     Out  of  it  sprang  immediately  the  polar 
opposition  of  Sokrates's  two  pupils,  Antisthenes  and  Plato.* 
Antisthenes,  on  the  one  hand,  though  accepting  the  posi- 
tion of  Sokrates  that  the  conceptual  essence  of  things  must 
be  determined  and  defined  before  anything  can  be  predi- 
cated  of  them,  yet  nullified  it  in  the  main  by  denying  un- 
qualifiedly all  knowledge  of  objective  universals,  and  by 
maintaining  that  no  subject  can  have  a  predicate  which 
adds  another  concept  to  the  concept  of  that  subject,  —  that 
the  individual  can  be  defined  by  itself  alone,  —  that  the 
only  possible  definition  of  a  thing  is  its  simple  name  or  the 
simple  enumeration  of  its  elements.      This,  of  course,  is 
the  putting  of  mere  description  in  the  place  of  definition, 
the  suppression  of  all  scientific  investigation,  the  impossi- 
bility of  all  scientific  knowledge.     Antisthenes  contended 
against  Plato  that  nothing  is  real  but  the  individual  as  snch, 
and  that  universal  concepts   express,  not  the  essence  of 

iMd.  114:  "So  wird  sich  der  Streit  iiber  Subjektivitat  oder  Objektivitat 
der  sokratischen  Lehre  dahin  entscheiden  lassen,  dass  dieselbe  zwar  im 
Vergleich  mit  der  fiiiheren  Philosophie  eine  entschiedene  Vertiefung  des 
Subjekts  in  sich  zeigt,  dass  sie  aber  nichtsdestoweniger  keinen  rein 
subjektiven  Charakter  hat,"  u.  s.  f. 

1  Wahrend  daher  ein  Plato  aus  der  sokratischen  Forderung  des  begrif- 
flichen  Wissens  ein  System  des  entschiedensten  Realismus  ableitete,  leitet 
Antisthenes  einen  ebenso  entschiedenen  Nominalismus  daraus  ab. "  (Zeller, 
Die  Philosophie  der  Griechen,  II.  i.  295.) 


\ 


166 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


\ 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TRADITION 


167 


things  as  they  are,  but  only  men's  thoughts  about  them : 
in  other  words,  that  the  Many  can  be  perceived,  but  the 
One  cannot  be  known.  This  was  at  once  a  reaffirmation 
of  the  Sokratic  dualism  and  a  reaction  against  its  pure 
universal  in  behalf  of  the  pure  individual.*  * 

But  Plato,  on  the  other  hand,  accepting  equally  without 
reservation  Sokrates^s  epistemological  dualism  (knowledge 
of  the  universal  by  concepts  alone  and  perception  of  the 
individual  by  the  senses  alone),  proceeded  to  develop  it  into 
the  metaphysical  or  ontological  dualism  of  substance  and 
semblance,  noumenon  and  phaenomenon,  archetype  and 
ectype,  the  One  and  the  Many  once  more,  —  that  is,  the 
Idea,  or  universal  kind,  and  the  Appearance,  or  individual 
thing.'^  This  development  was  simply  a  logical  necessity 
inherent  in  the  premises.  For,  if  knowledge  by  concepts 
and  perception  by  the  senses  have  nothing  in  common,  then 
the  universal  objects  of  knowledge  and  the  individual  ob- 
jects of  perception  can  have  nothing  in  common  ;  the  only 
possible  ground  of  knowing  the  difference  between  knowl- 
edge and  perception,  as  acts  or  processes,  lies  in  knowing 

1  Artist.  Metaph.  IV.  29,  1024  b,  32:  'AvTKrBivrjs  i^ro  evridufs  fXTfO^M 
d^iuv  \t)f€<TBai  Tr\r)v  t^  olKcltfi  \6y<f  iv  i<p'  €v6%  •  i^  utv  awi^aive  fir]  etyai 
dvTiX^yeiv^  crx^bbv  bk  /xrjdi  xl/evdeadai. 

*  "Was  bei  Sokrates  nur  ein  allgeraeiner  Grandsatz  gewesen  war,  das 
wird  bei  Plato  zum  System,  was  jeuer  nur  als  Erkenntnissprincip 
aufgestellt  hatte,  wird  von  diesem  als  metaphysisches  Princip  ausge- 
sprochen."  (Zeller,  Die  Philosophic  der  Griechen,  II.  i.  562.)  —  *'  Sowohl 
eWos  als  id^a  bezeichnet  bei  Plato  im  allgemeinen  zwar  jede  Form  iind 
Gestalt,  im  besondern  jedoch  die  Art  oder  Gattung  (denn  diese  werden  von 
ihm  noch  nicht  unterschieden),  und  nach  der  subjektiven  Seite  die 
Vorstellung  derselben,  den  allgemeinen  Begriff.  .  .  .  Einen  Unterschied 
in  der  Bedeutung  beider  Ausdriicke  haben  Aeltere  und  Neuere  verge- 
blichauszumitteln  gesucht."  (Ibid.  658,  Anm.  2.)—  "  Wir  werden  daher 
mit  aller  Sicherheit  behaupten  konnen,  dass  Plato  die  Ideen  weder  fiir 
menschliche  Gedanken  noch  fiir  Gedanken  der  Gottheit  gehalten  habe." 
{Ibid.  670.)  —  "  Ein  solches  Dasein,  wie  das  der  sinnlichen  Dinge,  hat  er 
den  Ideen  freilich  nicht  beigelegt ;  aber  gerade  das  ist  das  Eigenthiimliche 
seines  Tdealismus,  dass  fiir  ihn  das  Unkorperliche  raehr  Realitat  hat,  als 
das  Korperhche,  und  das  Allgemeine  mehr  als  das  Einzelne."    {ibid.  672.) 


) 


fy 


the  difference  between  the  two  classes  of  objects  with  which 
they  respectively  deal.     Hence  Plato's  development  of  epis- 
temology  into  ontology  was  simply  his  inference  that  a  real 
heterogeneity  of  knowledge  and  perception  must  be  abso- 
lutely conditioned  by  a  real  heterogeneity  of  universal  Ideas 
and  individual  Appearances.     This  inference  took  the  form 
of  his  well-known  "  separation "  0^a,^to-/xo9,  x^P'-^rd)  of  the 
intelligible  and  the  sensible  worlds:  that  is,  the  Idea,  the 
universal  kind  which  is  the  only  object  of  knowledge,  is 
itself  the  only  true  being,  the  only  real  substance ;  while 
the  Appearance,  the  individual   thing  which  is  the  only 
object  of  perception,  has  no  reality  at  all  but  that  of  the 
Idea  in  which  it  [quite  incomprehensibly]  "participates," 
and  is,  in  effect,  as  a  compound  of  real  being  and  unreal 
not-being,  little  better  in  itself  than  a  purely  illusory  sem- 
blance of  the  Many  (ra  TroAAci)  in  that  which  is  really  the 
One  (cmSc?,  fiovdSesi).    But  this  Platonic  chasm  between  the 
Idea  and  the  Appearance,  the  Universal  and  the  Individual, 
was  a  result  which,  no  less  than  the  pure  individualism  of 
Antisthenes,  accomplished  the  destruction  of  all  knowledge 
of  Nature  as  a  reality,  and  made  physical  science  logically 
impossible.^ 

Thus  Antisthenes  and  Plato  held  two  opposite  poles  of 
opinion.     Antisthenes  taught  that  the  universal  is  unreal, 

1  "  Er  (Plato)  hypostasirt  die  Begriffe  zu  Ideen,  aber  indem  er  nun 
diese  fur  das  allein  Wirkliche,  das  Stoffliche  als  solches  fiir  das  Wesenlose 
und  Nichtseiende  halt,  macht  er  sich  die  Erklarung  der  Erscheinungswelt 
unmoglich.     Er  fuhrt  die  Begriffsphilosophie  zum  System  aus,  aber  so 
tief  in's  besondere  einzudringen,  wie  seiu  Nachfolger,  findet  er  sich  nicht 
getrieben  ;  nur  die  Idee  gilt  ihm  als  der  wahre  Gegenstand  des  Denkens, 
daseinzelne  der  Erseheinung  hat  fiir  ihn  kein  tiefer  gehendes  Interesse': 
er  kann  es  wohl  benutzen,  urn  die  Idee  an  ihm  zur  Anschauung  zu  bringen, 
aber  jene  grundliche  Vollstandigkeit,  mit  der  ein  Aristoteles  das  empidsch 
Gegebene    durcharbeitet,   ist    nicht    seine    Sache ;    die    Einzelforschung 
erschemt  ihm  fast  nur  wie  ein  geistreiches  Spiel,  und  wenn  er  sich  eine 
Zeit  lang  in  ihr  umgesehen  hat,  kehrt  er  immer  wieder,  wie  ermudet,  zur 
Betrachtung  der  reinen  Begriffe  zunick."     (ZeUer,  Die  Philosophie  der 
Griechen,  II.  i.  564.) 


168 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


—  that  the  individual  alone  is  real  substance,  —  that  the 
Many  can  be  perceived,  but  the   One  cannot  be  known. 

Plato  taught  that  the  universal  alone  is  real  substance, 

that  the  individual  as  such,  having  no  reality  of  its  own 
apart  from  its  "participation"  in  the  universal,  is  mere 
semblance,  —  that  the  Many  can  be  perceived,  but  not 
known,  while  the  One  can  be  known,  but  not  perceived.^ 
Both  alike  destroyed  the  conditions  of  scientific  investiga- 
tion of  the  natural  world. 

In  the  interest  of  science,  therefore,  Aristotle  was  im- 
pelled  to  oppose   both  of   these    philosophers.     Yet,  as 
continuator  and  chief  architect  of  the  concept-philosofihy, 
he  inherited  from  Sokrates,  Antisthenes,  and   Plato,  and 
adopted  as  his  own,  the  same  epistemological  dualism  of 
knowledge  and  perception  which  was  their  common  ground, 
and  could  not  build  his  own  system  except  by  combining  in 
its  foundation  much  of  the  two  systems  he  opposed.     With 
Antisthenes,  Aristotle  declared  that  the  individual  is  the 
only  real  substance;  with  Plato,  he  declared  that  the  uni- 
versal  is  the  only  knowable   essence;   and  he  combined 
these  two  positions  in  his  own  fundamental  principle  that 
the  universal  in  the  individual,  that  is,  the  common  element 
or  nature  of  many  individuals,  is  at  once  the  only  sub- 
stance, the  only  essence,  and  the  only  object  of  knowledge, 
even  in  the  individual  itself.    In  this  compromise  of  the 
Aristotelian  Paradox,  the  greatest  philosophy  of  the  Greeks 
culminates  in  exclusive,  though  not  always  consistent,  devo- 
tion to  the  universal,  that  is,  in  absolute  sacrifice  of  the 
individual;  for  the  individual  as  such  vanishes  out  of  phi- 

1  Simplicius,  Schol.  in  Categ.  Arist.  IV.  66  b,  45 :  rCn^  U  iraXaiCu  ol  ixh 
Avripovv  tAj  Troibrrrra^  reX^m,  rb  iroidy  avyxiopovirres  etmi,  Qairep  '/ivriffBi- 
PVS,  6i  iroT€  nUruvi  diafi<pi(T^r}Tu>y  *'  (5  HXdrwv  *'  i<f>r}  "  twirov  p.^u  opQ,  ivird' 
rrrra  8^  oix  opQ."  koI  3s  elirfi;  "  #x«s  M^"  <?  trvos  oparai  t6S€  t6  6,xfM,  oS  di 
Iinr6r7is  Seupeirai.  oid^irto  K^Krrjcrai:'  Plato's  Qtupla  was  not  2)erc€ptwn  of 
the  universal,  but  pure  intellection  of  it  — an  activity  of  the  wOj  as  specu- 
lative  reason.  It  was,  however,  an  intellectual  analogue  of  sense-percep- 
lion,  and  closely  resembled  the  *'  intellectual  intuition  "  of  later  days. 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TRADITION 


169 


\1 


losophy  altogether,  when  the  individual  or  individualizing 
difference,  the  only  possible  ground  of  individuality,  is  de- 
clared to  be  beyond  the  reach  of  knowledge  and  discarded 
as  of  no  scientific  value.  But  this,  too,  is  the  impossibility 
of  natural  science  except  as  classification  by  mere  resem- 
blance; and  modern  science,  in  the  Darwinian  explanation 
of  classification  by  genesis,  broke  forever  with  the  Aristo- 
telian Paradox. 

In  truth,  Aristotle's  protest  against  the  Platonic  '^  separa- 
tion" of  the  universal  and  the  individual  was  at  bottom 
only  a  half-protest,  founded,  as  we  have  seen,  on  a  com- 
promise between  Antisthenes  and  Plato ;  and  it  failed  just 
because  of  its  halfness.     Plato's  xw/awr/xos  was  a  division  of 
the  natural  world,  as  a  whole,  into  imperceptible  but  know- 
able  Ideas  and  perceptible  but  unknowable  Appearances,  two 
separate  and  irreducible   elements;  Aristotle  did  but  con- 
join an  Idea  and  an  Appearance  in  each  individual  thing 
as  Form  and  Matter,  and  then  leave  these  elements  just  as 
separate  and  irreducible  in  the  thing  as  they  had  been  in 
the  world.     For  Aristotle's  Matter  was  just  as  unknowable 
as  Plato's  Appearance.     In  both  cases,  the  historical  root 
of  the  metaphysical   separation  was   the  epistemological 
separation,  and  the  former  could  not  be  overcome  while  the 
latter  remained.     The  only  way  in  which  Aristotle  could 
have  made  his  protest  against  Plato's  "separation"  com- 
plete and  effective  would  have  been  to  destroy  its  root  in 
the  fundamental  double-principle  of  the  concept-philosophy 
itself :  namely,  the  positive  principle  that  ptire  concepts  of 
pure  universals  are  the  only  form  of  knowledge,   and  the 
negative  principle  that  concepts  of  individuals  as  such  are 
impossible,  because  the  individual  differe^ice  is  unknowable. 
This  double-principle  is  the  essential  dogma  of  the  concept- 
philosophy  in  all  ages,  and  Aristotle  began  by  accepting 
it  without  question  from  his  predecessors;  he  could  not, 
therefore,    overcome   Plato's    metaphysical   "separation," 
which  was  the  necessary  consequence  of  that  epistemolog- 
ical dogma.    If  knowledge  is  of  the  universal  alone,  and 


I** 


Il 


170 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


perception  is  of  the  individual  alone,  then  the  universal 
must  exist  alone  and  the  individual  must  exist  alone ;  that 
is,  the  universal  and  the  individual  must  be  as  "  separate  " 
in  existence  as  are  knowledge  and  perception  of  them  in 
thought.     That  is  the  Platonic  x^pto-^os  in  a  nutshell.     The 
separation  of  knowledge  and  perception,  of  reason  and  ex- 
perience, of  understanding  and  sensibility,  is  the  essence 
of   the  concept-philosophy  from  Plato's  x^pic/xos  down  to 
Hegel's  reines   Benken;   and   it   ends  of   necessity  in  the 
dualism  of   the  imperceptible  but  knoivable  Idea  or  Forniy 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  perceptible  bat  unknowable,  Apjyear- 
ance  or  Matter,  on  the  other  hand.     What  Zeller  character- 
izes  as    Aristotle's  "unresolved   dualism,"  therefore,   was 
simply  his    inheritance   from   Sokrates,   Antisthenes,   and 
Plato,  and  his   legacy  to  Kant,  Fichte,  Schelling,  Hegel, 
and  the  rest.     So  far  as  Aristotle  accepted  the  dogma  of 
the  concept-philosophy,  he  fought  in  vain  against  the  Pla- 
tonic "separation,"  for  the  former  involved  the  latter;  so 
far  as  he  refuted  Plato's  "separation,"  he  refuted  himself, 
too.     The  only  possibility  of  overcoming  the  "  separation  " 
lay  in  showing  that  the  individual  difference  is  kuowable, 
that  the  individual  as  a  whole  is  conceivable,  and  that  the 
percept-concept  of  the  single  individual  is  just  as  strictly 
"knowledge"  as   the  (supposed)  "pure   concept"  of  the 
universal  essence  of  many  individuals.     Can  these  things 
be  shown  ?     Let  us  examine  into  the  truth  or  untruth  of 
Aristotle's  positions,  as  already  summarized  in  §  78;  for  he 
s(parates  the  Empirical  I  and  the  Rational  I,  the  former  as 
the  vegetative  and  perceptive  souls  which  perish,  the  latter 
as  the  intellective  or  noetic  soul  which  does  not  perish ; 
and  this   profound  separation  or  "  unresolved  dualism  " 
results  from  denial  of  the  points  just  mentioned. 


/^ 


CHAPTER   VII 

THE  TWO  THEORIES  OF  UNIVERSALS 

§  80.   We  have  seen  that,  of  the  three  elements  of  the 
individual  thing  as  such  (namely,  the  essence  of  the  genus, 
the  essence  of  the  species  or  the  species-making  difference 
and   the  mass  of  mere  "accidents"  which  either  may  or 
may  not  subsist  in  the  thing),  Aristotle  united  the  former 
two  alone   in   the  C1809  or  universal   form.     He  did   not 
acknowledge  the  third  at  all   as  essence,  reality,   or  true 
being,  but  threw  it  out  of  account  as  unmanageable.     The 
"accidents,"    indeed,   exist    "of    necessity;"    yet,    being 
merely  2)erceptible  by  seme  and  not  at  all  knowable  by  reason, 
they  must  be  referred  exclusively  to  the  thing's  individual 
matter  or  vX-q,  as  their  unknowable    ground  and  cause. 
Hence  Aristotle  dismissed  the  individual  difference  {to  Koff 
eKaoTov)  as  unknowable,  because  it  is  made  up  of  innumer- 
able and  incognizable  "particulars"  or  "accidents;"  and 
he  determined  the  object  of  knowledge  exclusively  as  the 
universal  (to  Ka06\ov).     Hence  he  could  not  possibly  recog- 
nize the  existence  of  any  individual  essence  or  form ;  his 
determination  of  the  object  of  knowledge  as  the  pure  uni- 
versal swept  away  all  reason  for  it  —  left,  in  fact,  as  Zeller 
shows,  no  room  for  it  in  his  system.     All  specimens  of  a 
species  were  to  him  scientifically  just  alike,  without  differ- 
ence, one  and  the  same  in  every  respect  but  number  (o/Aota, 
a8itt</>opa,  TO  dpiOfiio  €v),    Thus  the  Aristotelian   individual 
"thing  in  itself,"  the  toSc  ti,  notwithstanding  the  Aristo- 
telian principle  (derived  from  Antisthenes)  that  the  to8c  tl 
is  the  only  real  substance,  was  a  mere  arithmetical  unit,  a 
mere  continent  of  the  universal  with  no  content  of  its  own ; 
the  alleged  conjunction  in  it  of  matter  and  form  gave  it  no 


172 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  TWO  THEORIES  OF  UNIVERSALS 


173 


more  and  no  other  reality  than  that  of  the  form  alone,  and 
no  addition  to  its  reality  could  possibly  proceed  from  the 
matter  as  such.  For,  precisely  so  far  as  Aristotle  adhered 
to  his  own  explicit  determination  of  matter  as  pure  "po- 
tentiality," matter  itself  was  necessarily  unreal;  and  so, 
one  would  think,  must  be  the  individual  difference,  the 
"accidents"  of  which  it  was  composed,  and  the  individual 
thing  itself,  when  its  individuality  had  no  ground  except 
in  matter  alone.  This  was  coming  dangerously  near  to 
that  Platonic  doctrine  of  matter  as  not-being  (to  firj  ov), 
and  of  sensuous  perception  of  material  things  as  in  effect 
illusion,  which  Aristotle  tried  to  oppose. 

Against  this  determination  of  the  individual,  however, 
may  be  urged  the  gravest  objections,  which  point  to  quite 
another  principle  than  the  Aristotelian  Paradox. 

§  81.  The  "accidents"  are  thrown  out  of  philosophy  by 
Aristotle,  as  perceptible  but  scientifically  unknowable,  be- 
cause he  identifies  them  with  the  non-universal  and  the 
non-essential.  He  finds  them  neither  in  every  specimen  of 
the  species  (Kara  iravro^)  nor  in  the  species  which  is  imma- 
nent in  every  specimen  (^a^  airo),  and  therefore  not  at  all 
in  the  universal  (to  KaOoXov),  which  to  him  is  the  only  object 
of  scientific,  conceptual,  or  necessary  knowledge.*  But 
this  is  a  very  narrow,  fragmentary,  and  one-sided  view 
of  the  subject.  The  "accidents"  stand  necessarily  in  a 
twofold  relation,  (1)  to  the  specimen  as  an  individual, 
and  (2)  to  the  species  as  its  universal.  This  Aristotle 
overlooked. 

To  the  specimen  itself,  on  the  one  hand,  the  "  accidents  " 
are  by  no  means  unessential.  On  the  contrary,  they  are 
absolutely  essential  to  it;  for,  if  the  specimen  has  any 
reality  at  all  (and  Aristotle  everywhere  insists,  with  Antis- 
thenes,  that  the  individual  is  the  only  real  substance),  then 
this  reality  must  be  its  total  essence  or  true  being,  not  only 

1  "  In  der  Vereinigung  aber  des  icard  travrSi  und  des  KaS'  axnb  beraht  es, 
dass  das  KaSbXov  das  Nothwendige  ist."  (Prantl,  Geschichte  der  Logik  im 
Abendlande,  I.  122.) 


I 


I' 

I 


in  Space,  but  also  in  Time.*    This  total  reality  must  in- 
clude, not  only  the  permanent  common  essence  which  each 
specimen  shares  with  all  the  other  specimens,  but  also  the 
"  accidents,"  the  transient  and  successive  changes  which  it 
undergoes   in  relation   to  other  things   in   general.     The 
permanence  of  the  one  and  the  transience  of  the  other  are 
conditioned,  of  course,  by  the  objective  reality  of  Time, 
without  which  nothing  could  be  knowable.     In  the  order, 
succession,  and  connection  of  these  changes,  in  the  perpet- 
ual action  and  reaction  of  the  individual  as  a  complex  of 
energies,  or  thing  among  things,  lies  its  whole  realization 
in  Time  as  an  evolution-series.    Nothing  short  of  this  evo- 
lution-series as  a  whole,  as  a  unitary  system  of  changes  in 
Time  as  well  as  in  Space,  can  constitute  or  exhibit  the  com- 
plete reality  of  the  thing.     Aristotle  himself  presupposes 
all  this  in  his  own  principle  of  the  "entelechy"  as  the 
self-evolution  of  the  real  in  the  potential,  the  form  in  the 
matter,  the  species  in  the  specimen ;  for  all  the  successive 
G volution-phases   in  the   self-realization   of   the   universal 
^KaOoXov)  in  the  individual  (toSc  ti),  since  they  successively 
appear  and  disappear,  are  in  truth  mere  "accidents"  in 
the  universal  itself,  conceived  as  an  evolving  individual 
specimen.     Hence  Aristotle  can  defend  his  thesis  of  the 
intelligibility  of   the  universal   itself,   as   a   self-evolving 
reality,  in  no  way  whatever  except  by  the  principle  that 
the  scientific  knowledge  of  evolution  of  the  universal  in 
the  individual  involves  scientific  knowledge  of  its  evolu- 
tion-phases as  "  accidents,"  and  that  these  "  accidents  "  are 
essential  to  whatsoever  evolves.     But  it  follows  necessarily 
from  this  Aristotelian  principle  that  the  ''accidents''  are 
absolutely  essential  to  the  specimen.     If  Aristotle  had  only 
*  It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  Kantian  theory  of  the  pure  subjectivity 
or  ideality  of  Space  and  Time  was  as  foreign  to  Aristotle  as  it  is  to  modern 
science,  and  that  it  is  here  ignored  as  contrary  to  reason  and  experience 
alike.     For  some  of  the  reasons  of  this  rejection,  it  may  be  permissible 
to  refer  to  the  author's  article  on  "  The  Philosophy  of  Space  and  Time," 
in  the  North  American  Review  for  July,  1864.     Other  reasons  will  be 
presented  hereafter. 


174 


\ 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  TWO  THEORIES   OF  UNIVERSALS 


175 


completed  his  half-protest  against  Plato,  he  would  have 
been  the  first  to  recognize  this  necessary  truth,  and  to  ad- 
mit that  there  can  be  nothing  really  unessential,  nothing 
really  "  accidental "  or  fortuitous,  in  a  universe  of  law.  He 
almost  seems  to  recognize  it  when  he  says  that  the  acci- 
dents exist  "of  necessity"  (cf.  above,  §  78,  1).  By  his 
failure  to  recognize  it,  however,  he  lost  control  of  his  own 
movement  to  reform  the  Platonic  philosophy,  as  Phaethon 
lost  control  of  the  reins  by  which  he  was  guiding  the  horses 
of  Helios,  and  the  result  was  an  irremediable  defeat  of 
philosophy.  Hegel,  who  might  perhaps  be  considered  the 
last  great  Aristotelian,  made  no  advance  on  his  master  in 
this  respect,  and  continued  to  defend  the  "  absolutely  acci- 
dental side  "  of  the  object  of  experience  as  such.*  It  was 
not  until  the  coming  of  Darwin  that  the  "accident,"  as 
"  advantageous  variation,"  was  found  to  be  essential  both 
to  specimen  and  to  species. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  "  accidents  "  will  be  considered  as 
essential  or  non-essential  to* the  species,  precisely  in  accord- 
ance with  the  manner  in  which  the  species  itself  is  con- 
ceived. If  the  species  is  taken  abstractly  as  merely  the 
common  real  essence  of  all  the  specimens,  then  the  innu- 
merable "  accidents  "  of  the  innumerable  specimens  will  be 
indeed,  just  as  Aristotle  held,  non-universal  and  non-essen- 
tial to  the  species ;  and  the  species  itself  will  remain  per- 
manent and  immutable,  unaffected  by  all  the  "  accidents  "  of 
all  its  specimens.  But,  if  the  species  is  taken  concretely 
as  the  totality  of  all  the  real  specimens  in  all  their  real 
interactions  and  interconnections,  as  related  to  things  in 
general,  then  the  essence  of  the  species  will  include  every- 
thing that  is  included  in  the  essences  of  all  the  specimens ; 
the  "  accidents  "  essential  to  the  specimens  as  units  will  be 
ipso  facto  just  as  essential  to  the  species  as  their  universal; 
and  the  way  will  then  lie  open  to  explain  the  facts  of  phy- 

*  "  Der  Gegenstand  hat  nunmehr  die  Bcstiramnng,  (1)  eine  schlechthin 
acciden telle  Seite,  aber  (2)  auch  eine  Wesentlichkeit  und  ein  Bleibendes 
zuhaben."     (Werke,  XVIII.  83.) 


logeny  as  well  as  of  ontogeny,  the  evolution  of  the  ever- 
changing  species  as  well  as  that  of  the  ever-changing 
specimens. 

Precisely  here  lies  the  difference  of  the  old  science  of 
mere  registration  and  classification  and  the  new  science  of 
genesis  and  of  origins.     The  Darwinian  revolution  in  sci- 
ence was  an  unconscious  revolution  in  philosophy,  a  purely 
practical  abandonment  of  the  Aristotelian  Paradox,  with 
its  abstract  and  immutable  species,  for  the  scientific  theory 
of  universals,  with  its  concrete  and  mutable  species.     The 
passage  from  one  to  the  other  was  effected  by  recognizing 
the  truth  which  Aristotle  failed  to  discover :  namely,  that 
the  hidividnal  difference  is  esseiitial  to  the  ivhole  individual, 
and  the  whole  individual  is  essential  to  the  whole  species. 
The  individual  difference  thus  becomes  the  master-key  to 
the  evolution  of  living  forms,  when  it  is  once  grasped  as 
the  "  advantageous  variation "  of  the  individual  specimen 
or  specimens.     For  the  specimen  stands  to  its  own  "  acci- 
dents "  as  tlieir  knowable  universal  or  real  whole,  failin^^ 
which  condition,  it  could  not  stand  as  a  knowable  unit  to 
its  own  species ;  yet  solely  out  of  the  "  advantageous  varia- 
tion" of  its   individual  specimens  can  the  variation  and 
evolution  of  the  species  be  explained  by  the  law  of  "  natural 
selection."     Nothing  but  this  double-constitution  as  a  unit- 
universal  makes  the  individual  as  such  an  object  of  knowl- 
edge, and  its  knowableness  depends  just  as  much  on  that  of 
its  individualizing  difference  as  on  that  of  its  universalizing 
common  essence.     For  solely  as  a  unit  can  it  be  perceived ; 
solely  as  a  universal  can  it  be  conceived ;  and  solely  as  a 
unit-universal,  as  an  object  at  once  to  sensibility  and  to 
understanding,  can  it  be  even  incompletely  known.     Thus 
the  identity  in  difference  of  experience  and  reason  in  all 
human  knowledge  is  made  luminously  manifest  in  the  nec- 
essary constitution  of  its  ultimate  molecule,  the  percept- 
concept:    namely,   knowledge   of  the   individual   as   such 
througli  knowledge  at  once  of  its  universal  specific  essence 
and  its  individual  reific  difference.     For  it  is  these  two 


176 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  TWO  THEORIES  OF  UNIVERSALS 


177 


interpenetrating  elements  of  one  reality  which  alone  make 
the  individual  a  particular  thing  of  a  particular  kmd,  and 
thereby  an  object  of  possible  knowledge  as  "  something J^ 

§  82.  The  individual  difference,  then,  is  real,  because  it 
is  absolutely  essential  to  the  reality,  the  existence,  the 
actual  evolution  of  the  individual  as  such  in  Space  and 
Time.  Moreover,  it  is  not  only  real,  but  also  necessarily 
knowable,  because  the  universal  itself  would  be  unknow- 
able, if  we  could  not  know  the  individuals  of  which  it  must 
be  either  (1)  the  immanent  and  abstractible  common  essence 
(Aristotelian  Paradox)  or  else  (2)  the  concrete  whole  sub- 
stance (scientific  theory  of  universals) ;  while  the  unknow- 
ableness  both  of  universals  and  of  individuals  would  be  the 
non-existence,  nay,  the  utter  impossibility,  of  all  human 
knowledge.  We  shall  see  later,  however,  that  the  Axiom 
of  Philosophy,  "  human  knowledge  exists,"  is  both  an  actual 
and  a  necessary  truth,  both  a  fact  of  experience  and  a  prin- 
ciple of  reason.  From  these  premises  it  follows,  that  the 
particular  and  perceptible  "  accidents,"  of  which  the  indi- 
vidual difference  is  simply  the  totality,  must  be  at  least 
partly  knowable,  because  they  stand  to  the  known  individ- 
ual difference  in  the  knowable  relation  of  parts  to  their 
whole.    But  how  can  they  be  knowable  in  themselves? 

To  answer  this  question,  we  must  recall  Aristotle's  at- 
tempt to  explain  how  knowledge  is  evolved  out  of  percep- 
tion, as  stated  by  Zeller  above  (§  78,  IV).  It  becomes 
necessary  to  controvert  the  proposition  that  "what  the 
senses  perceive  is  not  the  individual  substance  as  such,  but 
always  only  certain  properties  of  it,"  or,  in  Aristotle's  tech- 
nical expression,  that  "  perception  is  of  the  Such,  and  not 
of  the  This."  ^  On  the  contrary,  perception  is  always  of  the 
This,  and  never  of  the  Such  —  always  of  the  unit,  and 
never  of  the  universal;  the  unit  must  be  perceived,  and 

1  Anal.  Post.  I.  31,  87  b.  28 :  el  y^p  Kal  ianv  ij  atae-qai^  tov  roioOSe  Kal 
fiTj  Tovbi  Ttvos,  dW  aiffOdveffOal  ye  avayKoiov  t65€  ri  koI  irov  Kal  vvv.  Ibid. 
II.  19,  100  a,  17  :  koI  yap  aiaQdviToi  pjtv  rb  kuO'  Uaarov^  i)  5'  atadrfins  roO 
Ka06\ov  iffriv. 


1:11 


the  universal  must  be  conceived,  while  at  the  same  time 
the  unit  cannot  be  perceived  unless  the  universal  is  con- 
ceived, nor  the  universal  conceived  unless  the  unit  is  per- 
ceived; both  perception  and  conception  enter  inseparably 
into  every  cognition  or  act  of  knowledge.  This  is  only  to 
say  that  there  can  be  no  knowledge  unless  "  something  "  is 
known:  that  is,  some  particular  thing  of  some  particular 
kind,  or  some  particular  kind  of  particular  things.  It  is 
only  to  say  that  the  two  acts  of  perception  and  of  concep- 
tion —  perception  of  the  This  and  conception  of  the  Such 
—  condition  each  other  absolutely  in  every  possible  cog- 
nition.^ It  is  only  to  say  that  an  absolutely  unrelated  term 
cannot  be  perceived,  that  an  absolutely  undetermined  rela- 
tion cannot  be  understood,  and  that  terms  and  their  relations 
must  be  known  together  or  not  at  all.  It  is  only  to  say 
that  sense  and  intellect,  sensibility  and  understanding,  ex- 
I)erience  and  reason,  are  ultimate  categories  in  the  theory  of 
knowledge,  for  the  reason  that  things  and  relations,  or  units 
and  universals,  are  ultimate  categories  in  the  theory  of  being. 

1  Fichte  follows  Kant  in  acknowledging  this  truth:  "Eine  blosse 
Anschauung  giebt  kein  Bewusstseyn  ;  man  weiss  nur  von  demjeuigen, 
was  man  begreift  und  denkt."  (Zweite  Einleitung  in  die  Wissenschafts- 
lehre,  Werke,  I.  491.)  But  the  converse  is  just  as  true,  that  a  mere  con- 
cept gives  no  consciousness;  it  is  only  the  indissoluble  union  of  concept 
and  percept  that  constitutes  a  cognition  as  such.  But  this  principle  is 
refutation  of  the  assumed  possibility  of  ''pure  thought."  This,  too, 
Fichte  sees :  "  Wir  ktiunen  niis  nichts  absolut  erdenken,  oder  durch 
Denken  erschaffen  ;  nur  das  unmittelbar  Angeschaute  konnen  wir  denken  ; 
ein  Denken,  dem  keine  Anschauung  zu  Grunde  liegt,  das  kein  in  dem- 
selben  ungetheilten  Momente  vorhandenes  Anschauen  befasst,  ist  ein 
leeres  Denken;  hochstens  mag  es  das  Denken  eines  blossen  Zeiehens  des 
Begriffs  und,  wenn  dieses  Zeichen,  wie  zu  erwarten,  ein  Wort  ist,  ein 
gedankenloses  Aussprechen  dieses  Worts  seyn.  Ich  bestimme  mir  durch 
das  Denken  eines  Entgegengesetzten  meine  Anschauung  ;  dies  und  nichts 
Anderes  bedcutet  der  Ausdruck:  ich  begreife  die  Anschauung."  {Ibid, 
492. )  Fichte,  however,  refers  both  percept  and  concept  to  the  pure  pro- 
ductivity or  spontaneity  of  the  I  itself,  that  is,  to  the  pure  activity  of  the 
I,  as  subject,  with  no  object  except  of  its  own  making.  This  is  his  tran- 
scendental idealism.  But  his  theory  of  cognition,  nevertheless,  agrees 
with  the  above,  making  allowance  for  this  difference. 

VOL.   I  —  12 


178 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  TWO  THEORIES  OF  UNIVERSALS 


179 


For  example,  if  I  perceive  a  straight  stick,  Aristotle 
would  hold  that  I  perceive  straightness  in  the  stick  as  in 
itself  only  a  Such,  that  is,  only  as  a  universal  property  com- 
mon to  many  things,  present  or  absent ;  but  that  I  perceive 
the  stick  as  in  itself  a  This,  that  is,  as  an  individual  thing 
or  single  substance  here  and  now.     On  tlie  contrary,  what 
I  perceive  in  fact  is  not  straightness  in  general,  but  this 
straightness   in   particular  —  not  a  universal   property  as 
such,  but  only  this  particular  case  of  a  universal  property 
in  a  particular  thing;  while  at  the  same  time  I  cannot  per- 
ceive this  particular  straightness  at  all,  unless  I  compre- 
hend the  Such  of  which  it,  too,  is  a  This.     Every  case  of 
straightness  in  particular  is  related  to  straightness  in  general 
(as  a  "  universal  of  property  ")  precisely  as  a  single  stick 
is  related  to  stick  in  general  (as  a  "  universal  of  genus  "). 
Each  is  a  unit  within  its  own  universal,  no  matter  whether 
the  universal  be  a  kind  of  things  or  a  kind  of  property  in 
things ;  the  universal  property  is  the  self-related  totality 
of  all  its  units  or  cases,  just  as  the  universal  genus  is  the  self- 
related  totality  of  all  its  units  or  things.     What  experience 
perceives  is  the  unit  as  unit ;  what  reason  comprehends  is  the 
universal  as  universal ;  and  the  truth  is,  not  that  reason  or 
comprehension  is  "  developed  "  out  of  experience  or  percep- 
tion, but  that  experience  and  reason,  perception  and  compre- 
hension, are  the  two  inseparable  factors  of  all  knowledge  as 
such.    In  other  words,  both  experience  and  reason  are  just  as 
necessary  to  the  act  of  knowing  as  the  two  blades  of  a  pair 
of  scissors  are  necessary  to  the  act  of  cutting.    The  straight- 
ness of  the  stick,  then,  is  simply  a  unitary  instance  of  a 
universal  property,  just  as   the   stick  itself  is  a   unitary 
instance  of  a  universal  genus ;  in  either  case,  perception  is 
of  the  unit,  comprehension  is  of  the  universal,  and  knowl- 
edge, or  identity  in  difference  of  experience  and  reason,  is 
of    the    unit-universal,    the    doubly-constituted    object  of 
knowledge,  the  identity  in  difference  of  the  This  and  the 
Such.     Hence  the  straightness  of  the  stick,  as  one  of  its 
"accidents,"  is  just  as  real  and  just  as  knowable  as  the 


stick  itself ;  and  so  is  the  totality  of  all  its  "  accidents," 
the  individual  difference  as  such.  For  every  "accident," 
however  exceptional  or  transient,  is  a  single  case  of  some 
universal  property,  quality,  activity,  relation,  state,  or 
change,  and,  when  both  perceived  and  comprehended,  is 
thereby  known. ^  But  where,  then,  lies  that  absolute 
unif/U(mess  of  the  individual  without  which  it  fails  to  be 
completely  individualized  ? 

§  83.  If  Aristotle  had  only  carried  out  and  completed 
his  half-protest  against  Plato  (see  §§  79,  98),  — if  he  had 
overcome  the  Platonic  "  separation "  of  Idea  and  Appear- 
ance, Noumenon  and  Phaenomenon,  in  the  only  possible 
way,  namely,  by  boldly  identifying  the  whole  reality  of 
the  universal  with  the  whole  reality  of  all  its  individ- 
uals, one  in  many  and  many  in  one,  as  is  done  by  the 
Darwinians,  —  he  would  have  found  no  more  difficulty  in 
conceiving  a  unique  individual  than  he  found  in  conceiv- 
ing a  unique  species.  For  it  cannot  be  too  clearly  under- 
stood, or  too  emphatically  said,  or  too  often  reiterated, 
that  to  Aristotle  himself,  everi/  species  as  suck  is  absolutely 
unique.  He  assumes  without  question,  as  a  mere  matter  of 
course,  that  every  species  is  completely  individualized  as  a 
species:  that  is,  absolutely  distinguished  from  each  and 
every  other  species  by  developing  out  of  the  common 
generic  essence,  as  its  matter,  its  own  specific  difference,  as 
its  form.  He  thus  conceives  each  specific  form  as  an  abso- 
lutely unique  combination  of  genus  and  specific  difference  ; 

*  Aristotle's  own  example  of  the  "accident"  is  the  "sitting"  which 
may  or  may  not  inhere  in  one  and  the  same  person :  oXov  ri>  Kadijadai 
<?«'3^Xf'^<**  ^irapx^iv  rivl  t<^  aunp  koI  fii]  vTrdpx^iv  (already  quoted  above  in  a 
footnote  to  §  78,  I).  "Sitting"  in  itself  is  a  universal  mode  or  j)roperty, 
and  is  intelligible,  therefore,  as  a  Such;  but,  when  Sokrates  "sits"  here 
and  now,  his  "  sitting,"  which  in  him  may  or  may  not  subsist,  is  only  a 
ThiSf  a  particular  case  of  that  Such,  and  so  perceptible.  What  Aristotle 
failed  to  perceive  is  that  the  "accident  "  itself  is  just  as  knowable  as  the 
specific  mark,  even  by  his  own  principles  ;  for  both  one  and  the  other  are 
only  particular  cases  of  a  universal,  both  unit-universals,  and  therefore 
both  intelligible  or  both  unintelligible. 


180 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


and  it  is  the  latter  element  which  makes  the  combination 
unique,  that  is,  individual.  Now,  plainly,  if  the  specific 
difference  specifies,  or  makes  a  unique  species,  no  less  will 
the  individual  difference  individualize,  or  make  a  unique 
individual.  Parity  of  reasoning  would  have  led  Aristotle 
to  conclude  that  every  individual  as  such  is  ahsolutehj  unique 
in  essence,  as  well  as  in  mere  number  (to  apiBfiw  cv),  if  he 
had  not  retained  so  much  of  Platonism  as  to  make  the  ruin- 
ous concession  that  phaenomenal  "  accidents  "  are  unknow- 
able, and  had  not  for  that  Platonic  reason  excluded  the 
individual  difference  from  his  system  altogether.  Through 
the  individual  difference,  however,  it  becomes  no  less  easy 
to  conceive  the  individual  as  a  unique  specimen  than  it  is 
through  the  specific  difference  to  conceive  the  universal  as 
a  unique  species. 

For  Aristotle  taught,  as  we  have  seen,  that  the  common 
specific  form  realizes  itself  in  the  matter  of  every  new 
individual  as  such;  that  is,  evolves  itself  anew  in  every 
specimen  in  Space  and  Time.  This  principle,  of  course, 
presupposes  a  necessary  evolution-series,  as  the  succes- 
sive moments  or  evolution-stages  of  the  form  itself.  Such 
evolution-series  is  the  necessary  origin  of  the  specific  differ- 
ence in  every  new  specimen  of  a  particular  species,  just  so 
far  as  this  species  differs  from  every  other  species.  In 
other  words,  the  specific  difference  is  nothing  but  the  gradu- 
ally evolving  individual  difference  of  the  species  itself, 
considered  as  a  higher  individual;  and  it  is  composed  of 
the  common  specific  marks  or  characters  which,  existing  in 
all  the  specimens,  constitute  together  the  one  necessary  and 
universal  essence  of  the  species  as  such.  In  each  and  all 
of  the  specimens,  the  realization  of  the  form  in  the  matter 
is  the  progressive  appearance  of  these  specific  marks,  side 
by  side  or  one  after  the  other ;  it  is  their  evolution  in  Space 
and  Time,  and  lies  in  a  succession  of  changes,  moments,  or 
steps,  each  of  which  appears  and  then  disappears  in  its 
successor.  Evolution  of  the  form  of  the  species  in  a  new 
specimen  is  thinkable  on  no  other  condition,  as,  for  in- 


THE  TWO  THEORIES  OF  UNIVERSALS 


181 


stance,  in  the  science  of  embryology.    If  the  form  realizes 
itself  evolutionally  and  is  knowable  in  this  evolution,  as 
Aristotle  teaches  that  it  is,  then  its  evolution-series  must 
be  knowable,  too ;  for  the  knowledge  of  whatever  is  evolved 
consists  above  all  in  the  knowledge  of  its  evolution-series. 
Incontrovertibly,  then,  it  is  essential  in  Aristotelianism  to 
hold  that  the  uniqueness  of  a  species  lies  in  its  specific 
difference,  as  a  unique  combination  of  specific  marks  which  in 
themselves  are  universal  properties  —  in  the  whole  evolu- 
tion-series of  changes  by  which  each   particular  mark  is 
developed  in  due  order  in  each  particular  specimen,  and 
combined  with  all  the  other  marks  in  an  absolutely  unique 
specific  whole  or  form.     Shortly,  the  uniqueness  of  every 
species  is  nothing  but  the  utiiquc  combination  of  universal 
properties,  characters,  or  marks;  and  this  unique  combina- 
tion is  itself  the  common  specific  form  in  all  the  specimens.^ 
Now  just  as  the  specific  difference  is  related  to  these  spe- 
cific marks,  precisely  so  the  individual  difference  is  related 
to  the   individual   "accidents."    If  the  specific   mark   is 
essential  to  the  species,  but  non-essential  to  the  genus,  so 
likewise  is  the  « accident "  essential  to  the  individual,  but 
non-essential  to  the  species.     Every  specific  mark  is  a  uni- 
versal and  relatively  permanent  character  common  to  all 
the  specimens  of  some  particular  species,  and  thus  belongs 
as  a   Such  to   the    specific    difference;  every  individual 
"accident"  is  a  universal  but  transient  mode  of  existence 
—  property,  relation,  activity,  state  — which  is  common, 
not  to  all  the  specimens  of  that  species,  but  to  innumerable 
specimens  of  innumerable  different  species,  and  which,  al- 
though a   Such,   belongs  to  the  individual  difference,  not 
because  it  may  not  just  as  well  subsist  in  other  individuals 
(for  it  may),  but  because  it  is  combined  with  other  modes 
of  existence  which  are  united,  as  a  whole,  nowhere  but  in 
one  absolutely  unique  This.     Both  the  specific  mark  and 

1  "In  jedem  Wesen  sind  die  Bestandstiicke  desselben  {essentialia)  die 
Materie;  die  Art,  wie  sie  in  einem  Dinge  verkniipft  sind,  die  wesentliche 
Form."    (Kant,  Kritik  der  reinen  Vernunft,  Werke,  III.  229.) 


182 


THE   SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


the  individual  "accident,"  therefore,  are  alike  perceptible 
as  units  and  intelligible  as  universals;  both  are  essential 
parts  of  the  wholes  to  which  they  respectively  belong ;  and 
for  these  reasons  it  is  just  as  easy  to  understand  why  and 
how  one  individual  differs  from  every  other  individual  of 
its  own  species  as  it  is  to  understand  why  and  how  one 
species  differs  from  every  other  species  of  its  own  genus. 
If  the  Such  and  the  This,  the  universal  and  the  unit,  were 
irreconcilable  in  the  individual  difference,  they  would  be 
no  less  irreconcilable  in  the  specific  difference,  and  the 
universal  species  would  then  be  just  as  unknowable  as  the 
individual  specimen.  But  Aristotle's  doctrine  of  the  plexus 
or  union  of  universals  in  the  knowahle  yet  unique  specific 
form  is,  by  necessary  implication,  confession  of  the  possi- 
bility of  a  similar  plexus  or  union  of  universals  in  a  knowable 
yet  unique  individual  form. 

For  example,  if  "  triangle  "  is  a  genus  and  "  right-angled 
plane  triangle  "  is  one  of  its  species,  then  "  right-angled  " 
and  "plane,"  being  universal  and  permanent  characters 
which  are  found  in  every  specimen  of  that  species  without 
exception,  constitute  together  the  specific  difference,  which, 
as  a  unique  combination,  makes  that  species  unique.    But 

BL_^:::rs:»c'  ^  particular  right-angled  plane  triangle  which 

stands  printed  on  this  page  here  and  now  with  a  certain 
coloring,  a  certain  size,  and  a  certain  proportion  of  parts, 
differs  from  every  other  right-angled  triangle,  whether 
in  actual  or  in  possible  existence,  by  various  particular 
"  accidents  "  just  enumerated  as  "  printed,"  "on  this  page," 
"here,"  "now,"  "  with  a  certain  size,"  "  coloring,"  <*  propor- 
tion of  parts,"  and  others  not  specified.  Each  of  these 
"accidents,"  considered  singly,  is  a  universal  determination 
or  mode  of  existence ;  each  of  them  subsists  in  many  things 
besides  this  particular  figure ;  yet  the  unique  combination 
of  them  all  individualizes  the  figure  as  this  and  no  other 
right-angled  plane  triangle,  and  thereby  gives  it  a  unique 
individual  form.    While  each  of  the  "  accidents  "  is  in  it- 


THE  TWO  THEORIES  OF  UNIVERSALS 


183 


self  merely  a  single  case  of  a  knowable  universal,  they  all 
meet  and  unite  nowhere  except  in  the  single  case  of  this  one 
knowable  unit ;  and  this  unique  combination  of  particular 
cases  of  countless  universals  in  this  one  particular  unit  con- 
stitutes its  individual  form  —  that  is,  makes  it  an  absolutely 
unique  unit-universal  or  object  of  conceptual  knowledge. 
Tersely,  the  individual  is  an  absolutely  unique  knot  of  partic- 
ular cases  of  innumerable  universals  in  Space  and  Time;  the 
unity  of  the  individual  is  the  uniqueness  of  the  knot ;  and 
the  unity  and  the  universality  together  constitute  the  indi- 
vidual a  unit-universal,  or  object  of  possible  knowledge. 

§  84.  Nothing,  therefore,  except  the  halfness  of  Aris- 
totle's protest  against  the  Platonic  x^pto-yMo?  (§§  79  and  98) 
prevented  his  arriving,  in  strict  accordance  with  his  own 
principles,  at  the  doctrine  of  individual  forms,  without 
which  the  derivation  and  evolution  of  species  or  specific 
forms  cannot  possibly  be  explained.  The  cardinal  defect 
of  the  Aristotelian  Paradox  (§  78,  VI),  as  a  theory  of  uni- 
versals, lies  in  its  exclusion  of  the  individual  difference 
from  the  individual  essence,  and  its  consequent  incompe- 
tence to  distinguish  between  the  essence  of  the  specimen 
and  the  essence  of  the  species.  This  exclusion  dooms  it  to 
stop  short  with  the  specific  characters  or  marks,  instead  of 
the  individual  "  accidents,"  as  the  ultimate  difference 
(TtAcvrata  8ta<^opa),of  the  individual  real  substance  (roh^  tl). 
In  fact,  the  reality  of  the  single  thing  necessarily  includes, 
not  only  all  that  is  common  to  the  genus  and  all  that  is 
common  to  the  species,  but  also  all  that  is  peculiar  to  the 
single  thing  itself.  This  total  peculiarity  or  individual  dif- 
ference is  reduced  by  Aristotle  to  a  mere  difference  in 
number  or  matter,  and  thereby,  according  to  Aristotle  him- 
self, relegated  to  the  sphere  of  the  unknowable ;  whereas 
it  really  consists  in  the  totality  of  individual  "  accidents  " 
—  that  is,  in  the  knowable  and  unique  evolution-series  of 
particular  changes  by  which  alone  the  specimen  (the  This) 
is  gradually  evolved  out  of  the  species  (the  Such).  With- 
out knowledge  of  this  origin  and  progressive  development  of 


184 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


the  individual,  combining  the  two  principles  of  continuous 
specific  activity  (heredity)  and  original  individual  variation 
through  constant  reaction  to  an  active  and  ever-changing 
environment  (spontaneity  of  adaptation),  the  whole  problem 
of  evolution,  whether  of  specimen  or  of  species,  would 
become  a  riddle  without  an  answer.  But,  if  everything  is 
evolved,  then  everything  must  exhibit  this  twofold  activity 
in  a  unique  individual  form  within  the  scope  of  possible 
knowledge.  We  may  not  yet  know  it  in  everything,  but  in 
everything  evolved  it  must  exist,  waiting  to  be  knowfi. 

Further,  this  fundamental  deficiency  of  the  Aristotelian 
Paradox  on  the   side  of  the  individual   entails  upon   it  a 
corresponding  but  vastly  multiplied  deficiency  on  the  side 
of  the  universal.    By  suppressing  the  individual  difference 
as  unknowable,  and  thereby  cutting  himself  off  from  all 
knowledge  of  individual  forms,  Aristotle  at  the  same  time 
cuts  himself  off  from  all  knowledge  of  specific  forms,  other- 
wise than  as  conceptual  fascicles  of  merely  common  elements, 
separated   and  abstracted   from  the  exuberant  variety  of 
Nature.    If  we  grant  that  the  individual  difference  of  every 
specimen  is  unknowable,  it  follows  that  knowledge  of  the 
species  must  be  strictly  limited  to  what  is  common  to  all 
the  specimens  in  Time  as  well  as  in  Space;  it  can  include 
neither  the  "advantageous  variation"  of  any  specimen  nor 
the  derivation,  evolution,  or  change  of  any  species ;  it  can 
originate  no  scientific  principle  but  the  false  principle  of 
the  "immutability  of  species.'^     Since  it  thus  fails  to  cor- 
respond with  the  proved  facts  of  the  world,  such  supposed 
knowledge  is,  in  truth,  ignorance  of  the  universal  itself. 
In  short,  because  the  Aristotelian  Paradox  fails  to  individ- 
ualize the  individual,  it  fails  necessarily  to  universalize  the 
universal :  its  lack  of  a  scientific  principle  of  individuation, 
so  clearly  recognized  by  Zeller,  necessitates  its  failure  as  a 
theory  of  universals  capable  of  founding  a  scientific  theory 
of  evolution. 

Lastly,  the  assumption  that  the  individual  difference  is 
unknowable,  onesided  and  untenable  as  this  assumption  is, 


THE   TWO  THEORIES  OF  UNIVERSALS  185 

vitiates  fundamentally  not  only  the  Aristotelian  Paradox 
but  aJso  for  that  very  reason  the  modern  "speculative  phi^ 
losophy"   {Begriffsphilosophie)  which   inherited   and   still 
perpetuates  that  outgrown  theory  of  universals.    Rooted  in 
the  attempt  to  separate,  instead  of  simply  distinguishing, 
perception  and  conception,  sense  and  intellect,  experience 
and  reason,  the  assumption  involves  a  thoroughly  unscien- 
tific epistemology  {Erkenntnisstheone)',   for  it  altogether 
sacrifices  experience,  the  knowledge  of  units,  in  the  interest 
of  reason,  the  knowledge  of  universals,  and  labors  in  vain 
to  put  philosophy  on  the  exclusive  basis  of  "pure  reason  " 
and  "pure  thought  -  {^^eine   Vemunft,  reines  Denken),  that 
18,  reason  absolutely  independent  of  experience.     The  sci- 
entific  truth  is  that  the  knowledge  of  units  and  the  knowl- 
edge of  universals  are  one  and  the  same  knowledge  of  the 
unit-universal,  or  only  possible  object  of  knowledge:  and 
that  this  constitution  as  unit-universal  is  the  necessary  con- 
dition  of  knowledge  because  it  is  the  necessary  and  most 
fundamental  "condition   of  existence.''     Tlie   attempt  to 
separate  experience  and  reason  apparently  first  took  defi- 
mte  and  effective  form  in  the  epistemological  dualism  of 
bokrates,   which  immediately  generated  the  polar  oppo- 
sition of  Antisthenes,  who  suppressed  reason,  and  Plato 
who  suppressed  experience.    The  whole  speculative  activity 
of  Aristotle,  the  friend  of  science,  was  directed  to  recognize 
both  experience  and  reason,  and  to  mediate  between  these 
two  extremes  through  a  compromise,  which  Zeller,  how- 
ever  characterizes  as  a  contradiction  :  namely,  the  thesis 
that  the  rational  universal  is  the  only  knowable,  while  yet 
the  empirical   individual  is  the  only  real.     In  this  thesis 
Aristotle  saw  no  contradiction,  because  to  him  the  universal 
m  the  individual  (ro  cTSo^  r^  cVoV)  was  at  once  the  only  real 
and  the  only  knowable.     The  graver  objection  that,  on  this 
theory,  the  individual  difference,  namely,  the  "accidents" 
m  the  individual  which  "exist  of  necessity "  and  are  yet 
non-universal  and  non-essential  to  the  c?So.,  thereby  becomes 
unknowable,  does  not  seem  to  have  occurred  to  him  as  an 


186 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


objection  at  all.  Yet,  if  allowed  (and  Aristotle  does  allow 
it),  its  effect  is  to  defeat  the  main  purpose  of  the  compro- 
mise, inasmuch  as  it  exposes  the  fact  that  Aristotle  simply 
transferred  the  Platonic  "  separation  "  from  the  world  as  a 
whole  to  the  individual  thing  as  such,  and  left  it  there 
wholly  undisturbed  and  unreconciled  in  the  dualism  of  form 
and  matter.  The  same  attempt  to  separate  experience  and 
reason,  leading  to  the  same  assumption  that  the  individual 
difference  is  unknowable,  reappears  in  the  Kantian  doctrine 
of  the  unintelligibility  of  the  "  thing  in  itself,"  —  that  is, 
the  individual  as  such,  the  unit  as  unit;  and  all  German 
idealism  builds  upon  Kant.  But  the  attempt  is  as  fruitless 
as  it  has  been  persistent ;  Kant^s  Trennung  is  at  bottom 
nothing  but  Plato's  xwpto-/Lto9,  and  both  end  in  the  unknow- 
ableness  of  the  real  unit  of  existence.  Yet  unknowableness 
of  the  individual  and  the  individual  difference  would  be  the 
impossibility  of  that  knowledge  of  the  unit  without  which 
the  universal  itself  could  never  be  known ;  it  would  be 
subversion  of  all  science.  This  result  emerges  conspicu- 
ously in  the  fact  that  the  real  /  in  the  We,  the  supreme 
unit-universal  or  "  thing  in  itself  "  which  challenges  scien- 
tific comprehension,  proves  to  be  incomprehensible  by  the 
Graeco-German  concept-philosophy;  for  this  philosophy 
culminates,  yet  defeats  itself,  in  the  Rationalist  Form  of 
the  Irrational  Antithesis  (§  71).  The  test  is  a  decisive  one. 
It  is  the  scientific  failure  of  the  fundamental  dogma  of  the 
concept-philosophy :  namely,  (1)  that  concepts  of  pure  uni- 
versals  are  the  only  form  of  knowledge,  and  (2)  that  con- 
cepts of  individuals  as  such  are  impossible,  because  the 
individual  difference  is  unknowable  (§  79).  But  this  is 
the  scientific  failure  of  the  Aristotelian  Paradox  itself. 
Darwin  unconsciously  exploded  it  in  his  discovery  of  the 
individual  difference  as  the  "  advantageous  variation,"  his 
principle  of  natural  selection,  and  his  proof  of  the  deriva- 
tion, evolution,  and  transformation  of  species,  as  against 
the  Aristotelian  doctrine  of  their  invariability.  He  thus 
cleared  the  way  for  the  progress  of  human  knowledge  in 


THE   TWO   THEORIES  OF  UNIVERSALS  187 

philosophy,  no  less  than  in  biology,  by  making  it  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  arrive  at  a  better  theory  of  universals 
than  the  Aristotelian  Paradox. 

§  85.    What,  then,  is  the  individual  form,  the  real  essence 
of  the  individual  as  such,  the  intelligible  nature  or  constitu- 
tion of  the  "  thing  in  itself  "  ?     If  this  question  is  really 
unanswerable,  as  the  concept-philosophy  pretends,  the  uni- 
versal Itself  is   necessarily  unknowable ;  for  knowledge  of 
a  universal  without  knowledge  of  the  units  of  which  it  is 
the  universal  is  a  glaring  contradiction  in  terms.     The  va- 
lidity of  all  human  knowledge  is  dependent  upon  the  possi- 
bility of  finding  a  true  and  scientific  answer  to  the  question 
put.     Such  an  answer,  however,  seems  to  follow  naturally 
and  necessarily  from  the  scientific  theory  of  universals, 
already  outlined  in  contrast  to  the  Aristotelian  Paradox.' 
§  86.    The    individual   form,    the    real    and   intelligible 
nature  of  the  individual  as  such,  comprises  three  distin- 
guishable but  inseparable  elements :  (1)  the  generic  essence 
or  totality  of  common  generic  characters;  (2)  the  specific 
essence  or  totality  of  common  specific  characters ;  and  (3) 
the  reific  essence  or  totality  of  individual  "  accidents  ''  — 
that  is,  the  individual  difference,  the  individual  character, 
the  entire  evolution-series  of  the  individual's  actions  and 
reactions  as  a  system  or  complex  of  energies  in  Space  and 
Time.     Through  the  generic  essence  the  individual  exists 
in  the  fjenus;  through  the  specific  essence  it  exists  in  the 
species  ;  through  the  reific  essence  it  exists  in  itself.    These 
three  essences,  like   three   concentric   circles,  coincide  in 
part,  but  differ  in  area,  the  largest  being  the  reific  and  the 
smallest  the  generic.     To  this  extent  Aristotle's  doctrine  of 
the  immanence  of  the  universal  in  the  individual  {rh  cTSos 
T^  lv6v)  was  correct,  for  the  smallest  circle  is  part  of  the 
area  of  the  largest.     But  this  immanent  generic  essence  of 
the  individual  is  not  the  whole  of  the  genus,  nor  the  imma- 
nent specific  essence  the  whole  of  the  species.     The  whole 
reality  of  the  genus  is  the  whole  reality  of  all  its  species, 
and  the  whole  reality  of  the  species  is  the  whole  reality 


188 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PIULOSOPHY 


of  all  its  individuals;  while  the   immancDt  universal,  if 
thought  by  itself  alone,  is  an  unreal  logical  abstraction  of 
common  characters  minus  all  those  individual  differences 
which  are  essential  to  the  whole  reality  either  of  species 
or  of  specimen.     In  actual  existence,  the  generic,  specific, 
and  reific  essences  of  the  individual  are  simply  elements  of 
a  whole  individual  essence  or  form,  in  which  every  part 
conditions  every  other  part,  and  in  which  the  parts  and  the 
whole  cannot  be  known  separately,  just  as  knowledge  of 
the   sides  and  knowledge  of   the  angles  cannot  be  had 
except  in  one  knowledge  of  the  triangle.     The  unity  of 
these  three  elements  as  the  unique  individual  form  is  the 
essential  and  intelligible  nature,  the  immanent  relational 
constitution,  of  the  "thing  in  itself."     As  such,  it  is  an 
absolute  unique,  unduplicated  in  the  whole  wide  universe ; 
its  uniqueness  lies   in  the  particular  combination  of  ele- 
ments, universal  in  themselves,  which  yet  meet  all  together 
nowliere  else  than  in  this  one  particular  unit.     Tlie  first 
two  of  them  are  shared  by  all  specimens  of  the  species,  but 
the  combination  of  "accidents"  in  the  third  is  absolutely 
peculiar  to  the  one  specimen  itself.     In  the  last  analysis, 
therefore,  the  uniqueness,  the  individuality  of  the  "thing 
in  itself"  lies  in  the  individual  difference.     Tliat  is,  the 
individual  difference  is  the  individualizing  difference,  the 
reific  essence,  the  principle  of  individuation ;  for  it  makes 
the  individual  form  a  universal  which  is  also  a  unit  —  a  uni- 
versal to  its  own  "accidents,"  a  unit  to  its  own  species,  and 
therefore  a  unit-universal  or  object  of  possible  knowledge. 

It  would  be  futile  to  object  to  these  necessary  conclusions 
in  the  name  of  that  loose,  vague,  and  much-abused  doctrine, 
the  "  relativity  of  knowledge,"  or  attempt  to  explain  away 
our  necessary  knowledge  of  this  immanent  relational  con- 
stitution on  the  ground  that  "  the  thing  in  itself  is  a  merely 
subjective  concept."  An  objection  so  naive  and  uncritical 
would  baffle  and  refute  itself  by  a  bald  begging  of  the  ques- 
tion. It  would  rest  upon  the  presupposed  but  unconfessed 
knowledge  of  the  same  immanent  relational  constitution  or 


THE  TWO  THEORIES  OF  UNIVERSALS 


189 


individual  form  in  the  conceiving  subject  as  a  "  thing  in  it- 
self."    This  is  self-evident.     Every  concept,  even  a  "  merely 
subjective  concept,"  is  a  particular  act  of  conception ;  and 
a  particular  act  of  conception  can  proceed  only  from   an 
actively  conceiving  being.     But  here  we  already  have  a 
known  "thing  in   itself."     An  actively  conceiving  being 
which  produces  a  particular  concept  already  possesses  in  it- 
self all  three  essences  whose  unity  constitutes  the  individual 
form:  (1)  generic  essence  in  "active  being;"  (2)  specific 
essence  in  "  conceiving ; "  and  (3)  reific  essence  in  "  pro- 
ducing a  particular  concept"  — for  this  particular  act  is 
only  one  of  innumerable  "  accidents  "  which  together  con- 
stitute the  individual  difference.     In  other  words,  it  is  im- 
possible to  suppose  that  "  the  thing  in  itself  is  a  merely 
subjective  concept"  without  presupposing  that  the  conceiv- 
ing subject  is  a  known  thing  in  itself,  whence  it  follows 
that  ''  the  thing  in  itself  is  not  a  merely  subjective  con- 
cept."    Such  a  criticism,  therefore,  would  annihilate  itself 
by  intrinsic  self-contradiction. 

The  new  science  founded  in  the  Darwinian  revolution  has 
already  arrived  at  the  conclusions  here  expressed,  so  far  as 
concerns  the  relation  of  species  and  specimen.  In  place  of 
the  Aristotelian  principle  of  the  old  science,  namely,  that 
the  whole  universal  (form)  is  an  immanent  part  of  the 
whole  individual  (union  of  form  and  matter),  it  has  already 
substituted  the  Darwinian  principle  that  the  whole  indi- 
vidual is  an  immanent  part  of  the  whole  universal.*     If  this 

*  For  instance,  the  late  George  John  Romanes,  one  of  the  most  saga- 
cious and  philosophical  promoters  of  the  new  science,  in  the  ninth  chapter 
of  his  "Post-Darwinian  Questions,"  wrote  thus:  **  Hitherto  I  have  as- 
sumed for  the  sake  of  argument  that  we  all  know  what  is  meant  by  a 
species.  But  the  time  has  now  come  for  showing  that  such  is  far  from 
being  the  case.  And,  as  it  would  be  clearly  absurd  and  preposterous  to 
conclude  anything  with  regard  to  specific  characters  before  agreeing  upon 
what  we  mean  by  a  character  as  sixjcific,  I  will  begin  by  giving  all  the 
logically  {wssible  definitions  of  a  species. 

"1.   A  group  of  hidiviiluals  descended,  etc. 

**  2.   A  group  of  indwiduals  which,  etc.     .     .     . 


190 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  TWO  THEORIES  OF  UNIVERSALS 


191 


is  the  generalized  meaning  of  the  theory  which,  in  the  mere 
"  accident "  of  a  "  spontaneous  variation  "  that  proves  to  be 
"  advantageous,"  finds  so  great  a  scientific  value  as  to  ox- 
plain  the  actual  variability  of  species,  then  tlie  Aristotelian 
Paradox  has  already  given  way  to  the  scientific  theory  of 
universals  ;  and  the  paramount  present  task  of  philoso])hy 
is  to  explain  the  Darwinian  revolution  itself,  by  showing 
the  deep  grounds  of  its  necessity  and  the  limitless  scope  of 
its  applicability.  The  real  thought-war  of  the  nineteenth 
century  has  been  waged  over  philosophical  issues,  vastly 
more  profound  than  the  ,actual  combatants  have  seen  or 


It 


3.   A  group  of  individuals  which,  etc.     .     .     . 

"4.  A  group  of  individuals  which,  etc,     .     ,     . 

**5.    A  group  of  individuals  which,  etc,     .     .    .** 

Similarly,  he  quotes  Alfred  R.  Wallace's  definition  of  species,  begin- 
ning: "An  assemblage  of  individuals  which,"  etc.  The  defect  in  these 
definitions  is  that  a  **  group  "  inadequately  expresses  the  organic  unity  of 
every  species  as  such.  But  they  all  agree  in  showing  that,  in  the  new 
science  which  explains  classification  by  genesis,  the  word  s|>ecies  means  no 
longer  the  abstract  universal  which  inheres  in  each  individual,  but  the  con- 
crete universal  in  which  each  individual  inheres.  It  no  longer  means  the 
abstract  common  essence,  fixed  and  immutable,  of  many  individuals,  but 
the  mutable  concrete  totality  of  all  the  individuals  as  a  higher  individual. 
The  essence  of  the  species  itself  is  evolved,  that  is,  gradually  changed  by 
incorporating  in  itself  new  sjiecific  characters  which  originate  in  the  non- 
inherited  advantageous  variations  of  one  or  a  few  specimens,  and  spread  by 
heredity  through  the  whole  species.  In  the  seventh  chapter  of  his  *'  Dar- 
winian Theory,"  Romanes  well  states  this  as  follows:  **  If  in  any  genera- 
tion some  new  and  beneficial  qualities  happen  to  arise  as  slight  variations 
from  the  ancestral  type,  they  will  (other  things  permitting)  be  seized  ujion 
by  natural  selection,  and,  being  transmitted  by  heredity  to  subsequent 
generations,  will  be  added  to  the  previously  existing  typo."  Manifestly, 
such  "slight  variations"  could  not  be  taken  account  of,  if. they  were 
unknowable  "accidents."  Recognition  of  the  individual  difference  as  not 
only  knowable,  but  also  indispensable  to  the  science  of  philogeny,  is  the 
great  theoretical  advance  which  was  made,  however  unconsciously,  by 
Darwin  beyond  Aristotle  ;  for  it  is  the  necessary  presupposition  of  natural 
selection  as  a  scientific  theory.  In  Huxley's  Collected  Essays  (Darwin- 
iana,  pp.  26-28,  33,  49-50,  74,  etc.),  the  same  conception  of  species  as  a 
"  group  "  of  real  individuals,  and  not  as  an  inherent  universal,  is  expressed 
with  perfect  clearness. 


suspected.  This  deeper  conflict  has  been  between  the  Graeco- 
German  concept-philosophy,  founded  on  the   Aristotelian 
Paradox,  and  modern  science  itself,  founded  on  the  scien- 
tific theory  of  universals  which  lay  gorminant  in  Lamarck- 
ism  and  Darwinism :  the  former  denies,  the  latter  affirms, 
knowledge  of  the  indhudual  difference.    As  so  often  happens,' 
the  new  truth  worked  itself  into  practice   long  before  it 
came  to  consciousness  in  theory.     Revolting  instinctively 
against  the  Aristotelianism  of  the  old  science,  as  exhibited 
in  Cuvier's  tenet  of  the  immutability  of  species,  Darwin 
completely  metamorphosed  the  concept  of  species  from  that 
of  the  abstract  specific  nature,  immanent  and  unchangeable 
in  every  specimen,  into  that  of  the  concrete  totality  of  all 
the  specimens  themselves  as  one  constantly  changing  and 
evolving  organic  whole.     But  this  was  to  discover  the  im- 
measurable scientific  value  of  the  individual  difference  and 
the  individual  form,  not  at  all  as  a  "  merely  subjective  con- 
cept" (conceptualistic   nominalism),   but  as   an   objective 
reality  in  Nature  and  the  fountain-head  of  her  inexliaustible 
variety  (scientific  realism).     This  is  a  philosophical  as  well 
as  a  scientific  revolution.     For  it  establishes  the  momentous 
truth  that  the  domain  of  the  existent  and  the  domain  of  the 
knowable  are  co-terminous;  whence  it  follows  as  a  necessary 
corollary,  not  only  that  reason  cannot  transcend  experience, 
but  also  (what  is  just  as  true)  that  experience  cannot  tran- 
scend reason.     In  other  words,  all  human  knowledge  is  con- 
ditioned on  the   identity  in  difference  of  experience  and 
reason :  knowledge  of  units  and  knowledge  of  universals  are 
unconditionally  and  inseparably  one  knowledge  of  the  unit- 
universal,  the  individual  form,  the  immanent  relational  con- 
stitution of  the  "  thing  in  itself." 

§  87.  The  two  alternative  foundations  have  now  been 
clearly  indicated.  Two  irreconcilable  doctrines  of  the  con- 
cept result  from  the  Aristotelian  Paradox  and  the  scientific 
theory  of  universals. 

§  ^S.  From  a  forced  and  artificial  combination  of  two 
inherited  principles,   (1)  the  Platonic  principle   that  the 


( 


192 


THE   SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


pure  universal  (cTSo?,  JSea)  is  the  only  real  substance  and 
the  only  object  of  real  or  scientific  knowledge,  and  (2)  the 
Antisthenian  principle  that  the  pure  individual  is  the  only 
real  substance  and  the  only  object  of  such  knowledge  as  is 
possible  (in  Aristotelian   phrase,  such  alaOrjaL^  as  is  not 
hrLaTrifxrjy  but  yv^t?  rt?),  Aristotle  derived  his  own  compro- 
mise-principle that  the  pure  universal  (to  ti  tjv  ctmt,  to  cTSo? 
TO  €v6v)  is  immanent  in  the  mixed  individual,  or  compound 
of  reality  and  potentiality  as  form  and  matter  (toSc  ti,  to  cV 
rovrmv)y  and  that  this  pure  universal  is  both  the  only  real 
substance  and  the  only  object  of  real  or  scientific  knowl- 
edge in  the  individual  itself.     This  compromise  determined 
his  concept  of  the  concept:  namely,  the  concept  is   the 
thinking  which  signifies  the  pure,  matterless,  or  universal 
essence  of  the  individual  (6  \6yos  6  to  rlyjv  cimt  o^/xati/wv). 
To  Aristotle,  the   pure  universal  of  thought  is  adequate 
scientific  knowledge  of  the  pure  universal  of  being ;  it  is 
pure  and  perfect  knowledge  of  the  whole  reality  of  the 
individual;  there  is  no  individual  form  in  being  and  no 
individual  concept  in  thought.    That  is,  the  concept  of  the 
pure  universal  is  itself  the  pure  and  perfect  concept.     This 
doctrine  of    **pure   thinking'*   as  the    pure   and  perfect 
concept,  or  pure  reason  absolutely  independent  of  all  ex- 
perience, is  the  prime  tenet  of  the  concept-philosophy  in 
all  ages,  from  Aristotle's  realism  to  HegePs  idealism  (the 
Begriff  des  Begriffes  as  absolutes   Wissen)-,  and  it  is  the 
necessary  consequence  of  the  attempt  to  effect  the  episte- 
mological  separation  of  reason  and  experience.     Neverthe- 
less,  the  pure  concept  as  knowledge  of  the  pure  universal 
is  logically  impossible,  because  knowledge  of  the  universal 
without  knowledge  of  the  units  of  which  it  is  the  universal  is 
itself  a  mere  contradiction  in  terms.     There  cannot  pos- 
sibly be  any  such  thing  as  "pure  knowledge  a  priorV* 

1  '*Der  Gcgcnstand  des  Begriffs  ist  mithin  die  Substanz,  und  zwar 
genauer  die  bestimmte  Substanz  oder  das  eigenthiimliche  Wesen  der 
Dinge,  und  der  Begriff  selbst  ist  nichts  anderes,  als  dor  Gedanke  dieses 
We^ns."    (Zeller,  Die  Philosophic  der  Griechen,  II.  2,  207-209.) 


THE  TWO  THEORIES  OF  UNIVERSALS 


193 


Hence  the  concept-philosophy  has  always  been  driven  to 
introduce  into  its  professedly  pure  concepts,  albeit  surrep- 
titiously and  by  minute  degrees,  as  in  HegePs  dialectic 
development  of  the  categories,  that  very  empirical  element 
which  it  pretends  to  exclude  in  the  gross.  This  incon- 
sistency, of  course,  was  unavoidable,  since  without  it  the 
concept-philosophy  would  present  nothing  whatever  to  con- 
ceive. But  complete  logical  failure  of  the  concept-philos- 
ophy might  have  been  predicted  at  the  start  from  Aristotle's 
fundamental  error:  namely,  repudiation  of  the  individual 
difference,  the  individual  form,  the  individual  concept,  and 
the  individual  definition. 

§  89.   From  the  ground-principle  of  the  scientific  theory 
of  universal,  that  the  whole  individual  inheres   in   the 
whole  universal,  but  that  the  whole  universal  does  not 
inhere  in  the  whole  individual,  —  in  other  words,  that  the 
individual  difference  is  essential  to  the  whole  reality  of  the 
individual,  and  that  the  whole  reality  of  all  its  individuals 
is  essential  to  the  whole  reality  of  the  universal,  —  it  fol- 
lows that  the  individual  form  is  the  inseparable  co-existence 
of  generic  essence,  specific  essence,  and  reific  essence  in 
one  real,  knowable,  and  unique  unit-universal  in  Space  and 
Time  (§  86)  ;  and  that  the  individual  concept  is  the  thought 
which  thinks  this  immanent  relational  constitution  of  the 
"thing  in  itself."    The  necessity  of  individual  concepts, 
that  is,  percept-concepts  as  the  sole  form  of  actual  cogni- 
tion, is  involved  in  the  very  nature  of  existence  and  of 
knowledge. 

"To  exist"  means  "to  be  something "  — that  is,  to  be 
a  thing  of  some  kind,  a  particular  single  thing  of  some 
universal  kind.  It  means  to  stand  out  (exsistere)  as  the 
actual  concrete  union  of  genus  +  specific  difference  -f-  indi- 
vidual difference,  in  distinction  (1)  from  nothingness,  that 
is,  from  no-thing-ness,  and  (2)  from  other-thing-ness,  that 
is,  from  all  other  things,  whether  of  its  own  or  of  any  other 
kind.  This  constitution  as  a  real  and  unique  unit-universal 
or  "thing  in  itself"  is  the  essential  form  of  all  actual 

VOL.    I. — 1.{ 


194 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


being,  the  one  absolute,  necessary,  and  universal  condition 

of  existence  itself. 

Moreover,  this  absolute  condition  or  prius  of  all  existence 
or  actuality,  this  Apriori  of  Being  as  distinguished  from 
the  Apriori  of  Thought  (§  99),  is  no  less  the  one  absolute, 
necessary,  and  universal  condition  of  all  knowledge.     For 
real  knowledge  must  be  knowledge  of  something  by  some- 
thing, that  is,  knowledge  of  the  object  by  the  subject ;  and 
existence  of  the  object  and  the  subject,  as  terms,  conditions 
the  existence  of  knowledge  itself,  as  a  real  relation  between 
those  terms.     To  deny  or  doubt  the  necessity  of  this  Apri- 
ori of  Being,  as   itself  the  condition  of  the  Apriori  of 
Thought,  would  be  simply  to  beg  the  question ;  for  denial 
or  doubt  is  necessarily  denial  or  doubt  of  something  by 
something,  that  is,  denial  or  doubt  of  the  object  by  the 
subject,  and  existence  of  the  object  and  the   subject,  as 
terms,  conditions  the  existence  of  the  denial  or  doubt  itself, 
as  a  real  relation  between  those  terms.     There  is  no  way 
to  evade  the  necessity  of  this  Apriori  of  Being  as  condition 
of  the  Apriori  of  Thought.     It  is  the  absolute  law  that 
whatever  "exists"  must  "be  something;"  it  underlies  all 
existence  and  all  knowledge,  and  simply  constitutes  their 

possibility. 

§  90.  Further,  the  ontological  necessity  of  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  "thing  in  itself"  as  a  real  and  unique  unit- 
universal  of  generic -f  specific -f  reific  essence  conditions 
all  possibility  of  the  concept  itself  as  actual  knowledge. 
Even  if  we  grant  the  most  extravagant  claim  of  idealism, 
that  the  subject  absolutely  "produces"  (erzeugt)  the 
object,  it  remains  true,  nevertheless,  that  both  the  subject 
and  the  object  themselves  must  conform  to  the  ontological 
prius  of  all  existence,  and  be  each  constituted  as  a  unit- 
universal,  a  "something,"  a  "thing  in  itself,"  or  else  be 
non-existent.  This  ontological  prius  conditions  whatever 
productivity  the  subject  may  be  claimed  to  possess; 
the  producing  subject  must  "be  something,"  and  the 
object   produced    must    "be    something,"    or  else   there 


THE  TWO  THEORIES  OF  UNIVERSALS  195 

can  be  no  production  whatsoever.     In  short,    whatever 
"exists,"  either  subjectively   or   objectively,    must    "be 
something,"  and  "to  be  something"  is  to  be  only  one  speci- 
men of  only  one  species  of  only  one  yenus^si  unit-universal 
of  generic  -f  specific  -f  reific  essence  —  a  "  thing  in  itself." 
Whatever  exists,  therefore,  must  exist  at  once  in  its  genus, 
in  its  species,  and  in  itself     But  this  its  necessary  mode  of 
existence  cannot  but  determine  a  priori  any  and  every 
possible  mode  of  knowing  it,  since,  of  course,  nothing  can 
be  known  to  be  what  it  is  not.    In  other  words,  the  indi- 
vidual form  of  the  "something,"  or  object  of  knowledge  in 
general  (including  the  subject  which  knows  itself),  neces- 
sarily determines  aprio^-i  the  individual  concept  of  it,  just 
so  far  as  this  concept  is  knowledge  of  existence  or  cogni- 
tion of  the  real :  the  constitution  of  the  individual  form  as 
a  unit-universal  necessarily  determines  the  constitution  of 
the  individual  concept  of  it  to  be,  likewise,  that  of  a  unit- 
universal.     This  agreement  of  the  two,  this  actual  deter- 
mination of  the  concept  by  the  form  of  the  object,  is  the 
truth  of  the  concept  —  its  validity  as  knowledge.     If  such 
determination  were  impossible  or  unreal,  the  concept  would 
not  be  knowledge  of  the  object,  but  ignorance  of  it  —  pure 
error.     That  is,  knowledge  could  not  in  that  case  exist  at 
all.     But,  as  proved  in  Chapter  I,  the  existence  of  human 
knowledge   is  the   one   Axiom   of    Philosophy,   of  which 
denial  and  doubt  are  alike  impossible.    It  follows  that  the 
individual  concept,  in  accordance  with  the  necessary  con- 
ditions of  its  existence  as  knowledge,  must  be  determined 
by  the  individual  form  of  the  "  thing  in  itself." 

§  91.  It  would  avail  nothing  against  this  conclusion  to 
plead  that  we  do  not  know  hoiv  the  "thing  in  itself"  can 
determine  the  concept  of  it.  The  plea  miglit  be  admitted 
without  shaking  the  conclusion  itself  in  the  least  degree. 
That  "how"  may  or  may  not  remain  to  be  discovered. 
But,  if  knowledge  exists  at  all,  the  constitution  of  the 
concept  must  be  determined  by  the  constitution  of  the 
object,  the  conditions  of  knowledge  by  the  conditions  of 


196 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


existence,  the  Apriori  of  Thought  by  the  Apriori  of  Being. 
Otherwise,  the  knowing  subject  could  "  know  what  is  not 
so"  —  which  is  the  very  acme  of  absurdity.  It  is  as 
certain  as  anything  can  be  that  existence  of  the  individual 
concept  as  real  knowledge  of  the  "  something  "  is  absolutely 
conditioned,  not  only  on  the  real  existence  in  that  "  some- 
thing" of  an  immanent  relational  constitution  or  indi- 
vidual form,  but  also  on  the  real  determination  of  the 
concept  by  that  form.  To  deny  this  would  be  to 
deny  the  possibility  of  knowledge  altogether  as  true 
thinking  of  being ^  and  resolve  it  into  a  meaningless  play  of 
irrationality ;  while  to  affirm  it  is  simply  to  affirm  that 
perception,  as  distinct  from  mere  sensation,  lies  at  the 
bottom  of  all  intellectuality  or  rationality,  in  the  necessary 
and  universal  nature  of  all  actual  cognition  as  percept- 
concept, 

§  92.  For  perception  and  conception  enter  inseparably 
into  every  actual  cognition  of  a  "  something  "  —  that  is,  of 
whatever  exists  as  an  object  of  real  knowledge.  If,  as 
seems  incontrovertible,  every  "  something  "  is  necessarily  a 
"  thing  in  itself,"  in  the  sense  that  it  must  be  internally 
constituted  as  a  unit-universal  or  individual  form  of 
generic  -f  specific  -f-  reific  essence,  that  is,  as  only  one  speci- 
men of  only  one  species  of  only  one  genus  (and  this 
definition  of  "  something "  is  purely  analytical,  transcend- 
ing in  no  degree  the  actual  content  of  the  only  possible 
concept  of  "  something  "  as  "  a  thing  of  some  kind  "),  then 
it  is  manifest  that,  in  order  to  be  known  at  all,  the  "some- 
thing "  must  be  both  perceived  as  a  unit  and  understood  as 
a  universal  in  one  indivisible  percept-concept.  As  simply 
a  unique  combination,  complex,  or  focus  of  universal 
modes  of  energy  (for  every  individual  "  accident,"  no  less 
than  every  generic  and  specific  character,  is  in  itself 
universal  or  common  to  many),  the  immanent  relational 
constitution  or  individual  form  of  the  "something"  is 
neither  a  pure  unit  nor  a  pure  universal,  but  necessarily  a 
unit-universal  —  at  once  a  perceptible    unit   in   its  own 


THE  TWO  THEORIES  OF  UNIVEUSALS 


197 


species  and  an  intelligible  universal  in  its  own  "accidents" 
or  evolution-series.  Consequently,  the  concept  of  any 
real  or  particular  "  something "  is  at  the  same  time  both 
individual  and  universal;  it  includes  both  an  individual 
difference  and  a  universal  essence;  it  is  not  a  "pure" 
concept  at  all,  either  of  the  individual  or  of  the  univer- 
sal, but  a  concretion  or  concrete  knowledge  of  both,  a 
reciprocally  conditioning  union  of  perception  and  concep- 
tion —  a  percept  on  the  side  of  the  unit,  a  concept  on  the 
side  of  the  universal,  a  single,  unique,  and  indivisible 
percept-concept  of  the  iinit-universaL  In  other  words,  a 
concept  of  the  "  pure  individual "  and  a  concept  of  the 
"  pure  universal  "  are  alike  impossible ;  the  percept-concept 
of  the  unit-universal  is  alone  possible,  even  in  the  de- 
siccated form  of  the  abstraction,  in  which  the  attention, 
indeed,  is  withdrawn  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  from  the 
perceptive  element,  but  in  which,  nevertheless,  the  percep- 
tive element  still  abides  as  the  disregarded  foundation  of 
the  conceptive  element  itself. 

§  93.  It  must  not,  however,  be  imagined  for  a  moment, 
least  of  all  assumed  to  be  a  part  of  the  concept-doctrine 
which  is  derivable  from  the  scientific  theory  of  universals, 
that  the  individual  concept  of  the  individual  form  —  in 
more  scientific  phrase,  the  percept-concept  of  the  unit-uni- 
versal—  is  to  be  considered  as  perfect  knowledge  of  its 
object.  Quite  the  contrary  is  the  case,  as  already  shown 
in  §  Q6.  The  percept-concept  is  no  more  "  perfect "  than 
it  is  "  pure."  In  no  human  cognition  (and  it  is  only  human 
cognition  which  is  here  considered)  can  perception  actually 
extend  to  all  the  units  of  the  species  to  which  a  particular 
"something"  belongs.  It  must  extend  to  several,  that  is, 
to  an  indeterminate  number,  in  order  to  discern  the  indi- 
vidual difference  of  the  particular  "something"  from  other 
specimens  of  its  species  ;  but  the  quantitative  limitation  of 
perceptive  power  in  a  given  human  subject  forbids  its 
extension  to  all  the  specimens  of  any  species.  Since, 
therefore,  the  whole  reality  of  a  species  is  the  whole  reality 


198 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


of  all  its  specimens,  and  our  perception  can  never  actually 
extend  to  them  all,  it  is  plain  that  the  percept-concept, 
founded  as  it  must  be  on  perception,  is  necessarily  pre- 
vented by  this  quantitative  limitation  of  perceptive  power 
from  ever  becoming  perfect  knowledge  of  that  whole 
reality. 

Moreover,  this  very  limitation  of  perceptive  power  in- 
volves  a  corresponding   limitation  of   conceptive   power. 
While  perception   grasps   the  unit  in  its   universal  (the 
specimen  as  one  of  its   species),   conception  grasps  the 
universal  in  all  its  units  (the  specimen  as  the  whole  of 
its  own  "  accidents  ")  ;  but  the  same  limitation  of  percep- 
tion which  prevents  its  extension  to  all  the  specimens  of 
the  single  species  prevents  equally  its  extension  to  all  the 
"  accidents  "  of  the  single   specimen.     Consequently,  the 
scope  of  the  percept-concept  is  limited  in  both  directions 
alike ;  it  fails  to  perceive  all  the  units  of  the  universal,  and 
for  that  very  reason  fails  to  conceive  perfectly  the  universal  in 
all  the  units.    The  whole  reality,  therefore,  of  any  and  every 
unit-universal,  "  something,"  or  "  thing  in  itself,"  extends 
far  beyond  the  grasp  of  the  human  percept-concept,  con- 
tains always  more  than  has  yet  been  discovered,  and  per- 
petually challenges  further  investigation.      Herein  lie  at 
once  the  explanation  of  the  shortcomings  of  science  and 
the  possibility   of   its  limitless   advance,   the   ground  of 
human  fallibility  and  the  hope  of  greater  human  wisdom. 
The  perfect  percept-concept  is  simply  the  unrealized  ideal 
of  science ;   as,    for   instance,  the    "  theory  of  limits "  in 
mathematics.     Nothing,  therefore,  could  be  farther  from 
the  truth  than  to  suppose  that  the  percept-concept,  as  the 
sole  and  necessary  form  of  human  knowledge,  can  be  ac- 
tually either  "  pure  "  or  "  perfect."     Such  a  claim  as  this 
may  be  freely  abandoned  to  the  concept-philosophy  which 
exhibits  its  pure  "  concept  of  the  concept "  as  the  realiza- 
tion and  perfection  of  "absolute  knowledge,"*  and  which 

1  "Das  absolute  Wissen  ist  der  BegriflF,  der  sich  aelbst  zum  Gegen- 
Btand  und  Inhalt  hat,  somit  seine  eigene  Realitat  ist."    (Hegel,  Werke, 


THE  TWO  THEORIES  OF  UNIVERSALS 


199 


thus,  in  the  eyes  of  the  more  modest  philosophy  of  science, 
surrenders  itself  a  voluntary  victim  to  the  **  conceit  of 
knowledge  without  the  reality." 

§  94.    Lastly,  just  as  the  individual  difference  conditions 
the  individual  form  and  the  individual  form  conditions  the 
individual  concept,  so  the  individual  concept  conditions  the 
individual  definition,  by  which  human  knowledge  is  stamped 
as  current  coin  in  the  commerce  of  intellect.    Remembering 
that  every  single  "  accident "  which  goes  to  make  up  the 
individual  difference  is  in  itself  (1)  a  universal  mode  of 
existence  in  countless  specimens  of  countless  species,  yet 
(2)  a  unitary  case  of  this  universal  mode  of  existence  in  a 
particular  specimen  at  a  particular  place  and  time,  disap- 
pearing in  another  unitary  case  of  the  same  or  of  some  other 
universal  mode  of  existence  which  immediately  succeeds  it, 
we  can  easily  understand  that  not  only  the  complex  of 
"  accidents  "  at  any  one  moment,  but  also  the  entire  suc- 
cession of  such  complexes  throughout  the  whole  existence 
of  the  individual,  must  enter  into  the  individual  difference 
as  a  whole  ;  and  that  this  individual  difference  as  a  whole, 
therefore,  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  the  total  evolution- 
series  of  the  specimen  in  its  species.     Clearly,  then,  the 
scientific  definition  of  the  individual  as  such,  so  far  as 
human  knowledge  of  it  extends  (and  this  limitation  of  the 
definition  results  from  the  quantitative  limitation  of  per- 
ceptive and  conceptive  power  in  every  actual  human  sub- 
ject), will  be  neither  more  nor  less  than  the  record  of  this 
total  evolution-series.    In  other  words,  the  scientific  defini- 
tion of  the  individual  as  such  would  be  the  whole  story  of 
its  existence  in  Space  and  Time  —  its  individual  biography. 
Of  course,  such  a  scientific  definition  as  this  can  never  be 
completely  realized;   it  remains  a  scientific   ideal  which 
can  only  be  approximated  in  and  by  the  growth  of  human 
knowledge.     But  nothing  short  of  a  complete  realization  of 
it  would  be  "  absolute  knowledge  "  of  the  "  something."    It 
Xyill.  144.)    This  BegHff,  as  reines  Denktn,  contains  no  Anschauimg; 
it  is  pure  concept,  not  percept-concept. 


200 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


goes  without  saying,  then,  that  the  concept-philosophy, 
repudiating  the  individual  difference  and  recognizing  only 
the  universal  essence,  is  a  mere  travesty  of  absolutes  Wissen. 
For  example,  taking  an  illustration  from  the  individual 
as  such  in  its  highest  potency,  that  of  the  real  person  op 
empirical-rational  I,  it  is  manifest  enough  that  the  life  of 
George  Washington  was  an  absolutely  unique  combination 
of  elements  which  were  yet  in  themselves  universal,  as 
thoughts,  feelings,  impulses,  principles,  words,  deeds,  and 
so  forth.    As  a  human  being,   his   generic  essence   was 
"  being,"  and  his  specific  essence  "  human  ; "  but  his  reifio 
essence  was  the  absolutely  unique  evolution-series  or  life, 
the  absolutely  unduplicated  character  and  career,  which 
distinguished  George  Washington  from  every  other  human 
being  that  ever  existed  or  ever  can  exist.^    This  was  his 
individual  difference,  and  every  other  man  has  his  own. 
Kepudiated  by  the  concept-philosophy  of  "pure  thought," 
which  professes  to  reject  every  empirical  element  from  its 
pure,  perfect,  and  universal  concept,  but  recognized  by 
scientific  philosophy  as  essential  to  the  individual  form, 
individual  concept,  and  individual  definition,  this  personal 
difference  of  George  Washington  is  necessarily  included  in 
the  imperfect  concrete  concept  of  him  which  is  expressed  in 

1  "  Every  great  man  is  a  unique.  The  Scipionism  of  Scipio  is  pre- 
cisely that  part  he  could  not  borrow.  .  .  .  Not  possibly  will  the  soul,  all 
rich,  all  eloquent,  with  thousand-cloven  tongue,  deign  to  repeat  itself." 
So  says  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  in  the  classic  essay  on  "  Self- Reliance." 
What  he  says  is  true,  and  more  than  he  says  is  true.  Every  great  man  is 
a  great  unique,  and  every  little  man  is  a  little  unique  ;  nay,  every  unit  of 
existence  is  a  unique,  and  absolutely  so.  It  is  interesting  to  note  how 
Emerson,  just  like  Darwin,  is  here  quite  unconsciously  repudiating  the 
Aristotelian  Paradox,  and  sturdily  championing  the  individvxil  difference^ 
though  in  another  field.  The  truth  is  that  the  advance  from  the  Aristote- 
lian Paradox  to  the  scientific  theory  of  universals  has  been  a  vaguely  but 
increasingly  felt  necessity  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  asserts  itself  not 
only  in  science  and  philosophy,  but  in  literature  as  such,  notably  in  the 
new  emphasis  on  fiction  and  biography  in  general.  What  we  are  here  do- 
ing is  but  to  interpret  this  demand  of  the  time  to  itself  in  a  clear  intel- 
lectual consciousness. 


THE  TWO  THEORIES  OF  UNIVERSALS 


201 


his  scientific  definition :  namely,  his  personal  biography.  If 
his  biography  is  at  its  best  but  very  imperfect  knowledge  of 
him,  this  fact  is  exactly  what  the  scientific  theory  of  univer- 
sals requires  that  it  should  be ;  for  this  imperfection  is  only 
the  necessary  consequence  of  the  quantitative  limitation  of 
perceptive  and  conceptive  power  in  his  biographers  as  men 
(§93).  But  his  biography  remains  knowledge  of  him, 
however  imperfect  and  partial  it  may  be,  and  knowledge 
which  is  both  empirical  and  rational,  too.  All  history, 
including  the  history  of  philosophy  itself,  must  be  subject 
to  precisely  the  same  imperfection,  and  exhibit  precisely 
the  same  twofold  character.  For  biography  and  history 
are  but  the  scientific  definition,  at  once  imperfect  and  con- 
crete, of  the  unit-universals  with  which  they  deal,  and  with 
which  they  can  deal  only  under  the  fixed  conditions  of 
human  knowledge,  as  determined  by  the  fixed  conditions 
of  actual  existence. 

Or,  taking  an  illustration  from  the  opposite  pole  of 
individuality,  that  of  the  ultimate  atom  of  the  material 
universe,  it  is  plain  that,  so  far  as  human  perception  ex- 
tends, atoms  of  one  and  the  same  chemical  element  are 
to-day  indistinguishable  from  each  other.  Our  knowledge 
of  them  is  at  present  confined  to  their  universal  characters, 
as  mere  arithmetical  units  of  one  and  the  same  chemical 
species;  as  specimens,  they  are  no  more  to  us  than  Aris- 
totle's o/xota,  d8ta<^opa,  to  dpcOfx^  ev.  That  is,  the  individ- 
ual difference  of  a  single  atom  is  as  yet  utterly  beyond  the 
range  of  our  perceptive  and  conceptive  power.  Neverthe- 
less, if  we  could  perceive  and  conceive  the  interminable  suc- 
cession of  states,  changes,  affections,  combinations,  actions, 
and  reactions,  of  whatever  sort,  through  which  a  single 
atom  must  have  passed  in  the  evolution  of  a  universe,  this 
unique  complex  of  "  accidents  "  would  distinguish  it  from 
every  other  atom,  constitute  its  individual  difference,  and 
supply  the  indispensable  basis  for  a  scientific  definition  of 
it  as  the  biography  of  its  unduplicated  career,  its  existence- 
story  in  Space  and  Time.     The  absolute  condition  of  all 


202 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  TWO  THEORIES  OF  UNIVERSALS 


203 


actual  or  possible  existence,  that  whatever  **  exists  ^^  must 
"  he  something "  —  that  is,  must  be  a  unit-universal  of 
generic  4-  specific  -h  reific  essence  —  is  itself  the  possibil- 
ity of  a  scientific  definition  of  that  "  something,"  whenever 
our  combined  perceptive  and  conceptive  power,  our  capacity 
of  combined  experience  and  reason,  shall  have  become  suf- 
ficiently evolved  to  learn,  at  least  in  part,  its  individual 
difference.  And  who  is  qualified  to  say  that,  even  in  the 
case  of  the  atom,  such  an  evolution  is  forever  impossible 
to  the  human  mind  ? 

§  95.  Such,  then,  are  the  two  doctrines  of  the  concept 
founded  on  the  Aristotelian  Paradox  and  the  scientific 
theory  of  universals.  Aristotle's  neglect  of  the  individual 
difference,  individual  form,  individual  concept,  and  individ- 
ual definition,  logically  necessitated  his  doctrine  of  the 
pure  concept  —  that  is,  perfect  and  exclusively  rational 
knowledge  of  real  existence  as  the  pure  universal  in  the 
individual^  ro  €t8os  to  ivov.  Correction  of  Aristotle's  funda- 
mental error  by  full  recognition  of  the  neglected  elements 
logically  necessitates  the  doctrine  of  the  percept-concept  — 
that  is,  imperfect  and  concrete  (empirical-rational)  knowl- 
edge of  real  existence  as  the  unit-universal.  The  former 
is  the  doctrine  that  the  pure  universal  (cTSos)  is  the  sole 
object  of  knowledge  (cVtcmJ/Ai;),  and  that  "this  something" 
(toSc  Tt  =  ctSos  -h  v\7J)y  so  far  as  it  includes  more  than  the 
pure  universal  (this  more  being  the  various  ovfifitprfK^a 
grounded  in  vAt/),  is  unknowable  :  the  latter  is  the  doctrine 
that  the  pure  universal  is  itself  unknowable,  because  as 
such  it  is  non-existent,  and  that  only  the  concrete  or  exist- 
ent "something,"  the  unit-universal  which  is  identity  in 
difference  of  generic  -f  specific  -|-  reific  essence,  is  know- 
able  at  all,  because  whatever  "  exists  "  must  "  be  something/* 
and  whatever  "  is  something  "  must  be  in  itself  "  an  object 
of  possible  knowledge"  —  more  tersely  still,  because  exist- 
ence and  knowableness  are  one  and  the  same  immanent 
relational  constitution,  non-existence  and  unknowableness 
one  and  the  same  lack  of  it.    The  former  doctrine  is  the 


self-defeating  attempt  to  separate  experience  and  reason  — 
to  eliminate  all  perception  from  knowledge,  and  to  produce 
knowledge,  independently  of  all  perception  or  experience, 
out  of  pure  conception  or  reason  alone ;  while  the  latter 
is  simply  the  unavoidable  acknowledgment  of  perception 
and  conception  as  equally  necessary  and  reciprocally  con- 
ditioning factors  of  every  actual  cognition.  This  result 
was  already  involved  in  the  universal  principle  established 
in  Chapter  I ;  namely,  the  identity  in  difference  of  expe- 
rience and  reason  in  all  human  knowledge,  as  itself  grounded 
on  the  identity  in  difference  of  existence  and  knowledge 
in  all  personal  consciousness  of  the  real  I  as  A  Man  in 
Mankind. 

§  96.  But  now  arises  a  new  and  profound  question.  Why 
must  the  origins  of  human  knowledge  (so  far  as  mere 
modes  of  acquisition  can  be  considered  origins)  be  limited 
to  two,  experience  and  reason,  sensibility  and  understand- 
ing? Tliorough-going  empiricism  and  thorough-going  ra- 
tionalism have  alike  sought  for  centuries  to  reduce  these 
two  origins  to  one,  the  former  to  sensibility  alone,  the 
latter  to  reason  alone ;  yet  neither  has  succeeded,  and  the 
strife  still  goes  on.  Nay,  all  attempts  of  mere  eclecticism 
to  recognize  both  origins  as  equally  necessary,  and  to 
reconcile  them  in  one  self-harmonious  theory  of  knowl- 
edge, have  failed  no  less  signally.  Why  this  long  record 
of  failure  in  philosophy  as  knowledge  of  knowledge  ?  For 
philosophy  as  knowledge  of  thought  emancipated  from  all 
dependence  on  real  being  is  not  philosophy  at  all,  hut  a  bald 
begging  of  the  question  (§  86). 

The  explanation  of  this  failure  is  not  far  to  seek.  It 
lies  in  a  series  of  historical  facts  not  difficult  to  understand, 
if  the  results  arrived  at  hitherto  are  correct:  (1)  Greek 
philosophy  failed  to  solve  scientifically  its  one  great  prob- 
lem of  the  Many  and  the  One,  the  Universal  and  the  Unit, 
but  bequeathed  to  later  ages  an  unscientific  solution  of  it  in 
the  Aristotelian  Paradox  ;  (2)  mediaeval  philosophy  failed 
to  solve  scientifically  the  same  great  problem,  as  revived 


204 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  rniLOSOPHY 


and  left  unsettled  in  its  own  long  controversy  respecting 
the  theory  of  universals,  and  simply  handed  down  the  same 
unscientific  solution  of  it,  transformed  from  realism  to 
conceptualism,  but  essentially  unchanged;  (3)  modern  ra- 
tionalism, as  continuator  of  the  Greek  concept-philosophy, 
and  modern  empiricism,  as  continuator  of  the  Greek  per- 
cept-philosophy, have  equally  failed  to  solve  the  ancient 
and  mediaeval  problem  of  universals  scientifically,  because 
they  have  both  still  clung  to  the  Aristotelian  Paradox,  and 
uncritically  converted  into  a  mere  dogma  Aristotle^s  disre- 
gard of  the  individual  difference  and  the  individual  form 
of  the  ToSc  Tt  or  "  thing  in  itself ;  "  (4)  Darwin,  solving 
scientifically  the  problem  of  the  origin  of  species,  discov- 
ered in  this  particular  instance  the  scientific  value  of  the 
individual  difference  as  the  "advantageous  variation," 
thereby  unconsciously  overthrowing  the  Aristotelian  Para- 
dox itself,  and  revolutionizing  by  necessary  implication 
the  whole  theory  of  human  knowledge ;  while  (5)  modern 
philosophy  has  not  yet  discovered  Darwin's  discovery,  or 
made  a  single  serious  attempt  to  understand  the  profound 
epistemological  significance  of  tlie  Darwinian  revolution 
(§  8G).  These  facts,  if  thoughtfully  pondered  and  di- 
gested, clearly  enough  account  for  the  inability  of  mod- 
ern philosophy,  unliesitatingly  avowed  by  its  greatest 
master,  Kant,  to  explain  why  the  knowing-faculty  in  gen- 
eral must  exercise  itself  in  two,  and  only  two,  fundamental 
functions :  to  wit,  sensibility  and  understanding.  The  dif- 
ficulty itself  is  simply  a  necessary  consequence  of  the 
Aristotelian  Paradox. 

§  97.  But  no  more  convincing  proof  or  verification  of  the 
truth  of  the  scientific  theory  of  universals  could  be  desired, 
perhaps,  than  is  found  in  the  incidental  explanation  it 
affords  of  this  supposed  mystery. 

To  Kant,  sensibility  and  understanding  were  two  ulti- 
mate, co-ordinate,  heterogeneous,  and  independent  functions 
of  the  knowing-faculty  in  general  {Erkenntnissverm6gen\ 
between  which  there  existed  no  "  known "  community  of 


THE  TWO  THEORIES  OF  UNIVERSALS 


205 


origin,  no  "known"  reciprocity  of  influence,  no  "known" 
necessity  of  co-existence.^  They  were  two  as  an  inexpli- 
cable fact  —  no  reason  of  the  twoness  was  assignable  beyond 
a  bare  and  blind  conjecture  that  the  two  might  "  possibly  " 
spring  from  some  "common,  but  to  us  unknown,  root."^ 
Here,  then,  is  that  unreasoned  but  unequivocal  separation 
of  sensibility  and  understanding,  perception  and  conception, 
experience  and  reason,  which  the  great  German  inherited 
from  the  great  Greek  in  the  Aristotelian  Paradox,  and 
which  he  made  the  bottom  principle  of  the  German  con- 

^  "  Mit  der  erkannten  und  festgestellten  Unterscheidung  jener  beiden 
Vermogen  beginnt  die  kritische  Philosphie.  .  .  .  Demnach  theilt  sich  die 
Erforschuiig  der  menschlicben  Vernuuft  in  die  Untcrsuchung  dor  Sinn- 
lichkeit  und  die  des  Verstandes."  (K.  Fischer,  Geschichte  der  neucrn 
Philosophic,  III.  290.)  —  "In  dieser  Forme!  erwarte  das  Problem  seine 
Losung,  aber  nicht  von  der  kritlschen  Philosophic,  die  unter  ihrem  Gcsichts- 
punkte  die  gemeinschaftliche  Wurzel  von  Verstand  und  Sinnlichkeit  nicht 
iinden  kann,  und  es  iiberhaupt  fiir  unmoglich  erklaren  muss,  dass  die 
menschliche  Vernunft  je  dieselbo  finde."    {Ibid.  III.  458.) 

*  "  Nur  so  viel  scheint  zur  Einleitung  oder  Vorerinnerung  nothig  zu 
sein,  dass  es  zwei  Stamme  der  menschlicben  Erkenntniss  gebe,  die  viel- 
leicht  aus  einer  gemeinschaftlichen,  aber  uns  unbekannten  Wurzel  ent- 
springen,  n'amlich  Sinnlichkeit  und  Verstand,  durch  deren  ersteren  uns 
Gegenstande  gegebcn,  durch  den  zweiten  aber  gcdacht  werden."     (Kritik 
der  reinen  Vernunft,  Werke,  III.  52,  ed.  Hart.) — "Unsere  Erkenntniss 
entspringt  aus  zwei  Grundquellen  des  Gemiiths,  deren  die  erste  ist,  die 
Vorstellungen  zu  empfangen  (die  Receptivitat  der  Eindriickc),  die  zweite 
das  Vermogen,  durch  jene  Vorstellungen  einen  Gegenstand  zu  erkennen 
(Spontaneitat  der  Begriffe) ;  durch  die  erstere  wird  uns  ein  Gegenstand 
gegeben,  durch  die  zweite  wird  dieser  im  Verhaltniss  auf  dieso  Vorstel- 
lung  (als  blose    Bestimmung  des    Gemiiths)  gcdacht."    (Ibid.  III.  81.) 
—  *•  Wir  begniigen  uns  hier  rait  der  VoUendung  unseres  Geschiiftes,  namlich 
Icdiglich  die  ArchUcktonik  aller  Erkenntniss  aus  reiner  Vernunft  zu  ent- 
werfon,  und  fangen  nur  von  dem  Punkte  an,  wo  sich  die  allgemeinc 
Wurzel  unserer  Erkenntnisskraft  theilt  und  zwei  Stamme  auswirft,  deren 
einer   Vcmuvft  ist.     Ich  verstehe  hier  aber  unter  Vernunft  das  gauze 
obere  Erkenntnissvemuigen,  und  seize  also  das  Rationale  dem  Empirischen 
entgegen."     (Ibid.  III.  550.)    The  antithesis  of  sensibility  and  under- 
standing is  thus  expressly  identified  by  Kant  with  that  of  experience  and 
reason,  which  remains  an  ungrounded  separation  ;  while  the  whole  sifdcm 
(or  form)  of  human  knowledge  is  spun  a  priori  out  of  pure  reason  alone. 


206 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  TWO  THEORIES  OF  UNIVERSALS 


207 


cept-philosophy  as  "  pure  knowledge  a  priori "  and  "  pure 
thought."  Yet  this  underlying  and  all -supporting  and  all- 
comprehending  principle  of  German  idealism  is  not  only 
confessedly  groundless  in  reason,  but  also  demonstrably 
false  in  fact. 

For  Kant's  "common,  but  to  us  unknown,  root,"  from 
which  sensibility  and  understanding  diverge  as  the  two  con- 
stitutive functions  of  all  human  knowledge,  is  discovered 
through  the  scientific  theory  of  universals  to  be  those  aborigi- 
nal particular  conditions  of  the  "  existence  of  human  knowl- 
edge"   (Axiom    of    Philosophy)    which    are    ultimately 
determined,  in  the  now  familiar  phrase  of  modern  science, 
by  the  "conditions  of  existence"  in  general.    That  is,  if 
knowledge  exists,  it  must  exist  as  the  percept-concept  alone. 
In  more  technical  language,  Kant's  "  common  but  unknown 
root "  is  that  Apriori  of  Being  which  necessarily  deter- 
mines the  Apriori  of  Thought,  because  the  form  of  exist- 
ence necessarily  determines  the  form  of  all  knowledge  of 
existence;    more  precisely   still,  it  is  that  ultimate  and 
necessary  constitution  of  the  object  of  knowledge  as  the 
"something,"  the  unit-universal,  the  identity  in  difference 
of  generic  -|-  specific  +  reific  essence,  the  One  in  Many  and 
Many  in  One,  beyond  which  lies  only  the  absolute  '•'  nothing" 
of   non-existence  and  non-intelligibility.      Knowledge  of 
existence  is  the  only  possible  knowledge ;  knowledge  of 
non-existence  or  absolute  nothingness  is  impossible,  be- 
cause knowledge  of  "nothing"  =  no  knowledge  at  all. 
Since,  therefore,  existence  is  possible  only  as  the  "  some- 
thing" or  unit-universal,  knowledge  is  possible  only  as  per" 
ception  of  the  unit  and  conception  of  the  universal  in  one 
indivisible   percept-concept    of    the    unit-universal.       The 
ultimate  necessity  of  the  twofold  branching  of  the  know- 
ing-faculty, therefore,  is  ontological,  not  ultimately  episte- 
mological  or  psychological;   it  must  be  "rooted"  in  the 
nature  of  the  object,  no  less  than  in  the  nature  of  the  sub- 
ject; the  percept-concept  is  the  only  actual  or  possible  form 
of  knowledge,  (1)  because  the  unit-universal  is  the  only 


actual  form  of  existence,  and  (2)  because  the  unit-universal 
must  be  known  as  it  is,  or  not  at  all.      In  other  words, 
the  only  possible  modes,  functions,  or  faculties  of  knowl- 
edge are,  from  the  sheer  necessity  of  the  case,  in  the  un- 
created "  nature  of  things,"  those  two  forms  of  activity 
of  the  one  knowing-faculty  which,  on  the  side  of  the  unit, 
we  call  sensibility  or  perception  or  experience,  and,  on  the 
side  of  the  universal,  understanding  or  conception  or  reason. 
Further,  but  still  in  accordance  with  the  fundamental 
principle  of  all  scientific  epistemology,  namely,  that  exist- 
ence determines  knowledge,  this  necessary  two-sidedness  of 
the  knowing-process  in  Man  must  originate  ultimately  in  a 
corresponding  two-sidedness  of   the  evolution-process  in 
Nature.    For  we  have  seen  already,  in  §  84,  that  the  neces- 
sary interaction  of  two  complementary  principles   alone 
accounts  for  the  origin  and  evolution  of  the  "something" 
as  "  a  thing  of  some  kind  "  or  unit-universal :  heredity^  or 
continuous  specific  activity,  as  the  origin  of  its  common 
element  or  community,  and  adaptation^  or  original  indi- 
vidual variation   in  reaction  to  the  environment,  as  the 
origin  of  its  peculiar  element,  individual  difference,  or  in- 
dividuality.    Hence  it  is  plain  that,  if  knowledge  is  to  be 
possible  at  all,  perception^  as  knowledge  of  units,  is  made 
necessary  by  adaptation^  as  the  origin  of  individuality  or 
individual  unity  in  the  "  something ;  "  and  that  conception, 
as  knowledge  of  universals,  is  made  necessary  by  heredity, 
as  the  origin  of  its  community  or  universality.    In  other 
words,  the  double-constitution  of  the  knowing-process  as 
perception  and  conception,  or  sensibility  and  understand- 
ing, results  necessarily  from  the  double-constitution  of  the 
evolution-process  as  adaptation  and  heredity ;  and  this  is 
itself  the  necessary  result  of  the  fact  that,  by  the  Apriori 
of  Being,  the  "  something  "  can  neither  exist  nor  be  evolved 
except  in  the  form  of  a  unit-universal.    In  still  other  words, 
every  "  something,"  as  product,  comes  into  existence  through 
evolution,  as  process,  and  this  process  is  the  identity  in  dif- 
ference of  heredity  and  adaptation  ;  hence  cognition  of  the 


208 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


"something,"  as  product,  equally  comes  into  existence 
through  evolution,  as  process,  and  this  process  is  identity 
in  difference  of  perception  and  conception.  The  process  of 
evolution,  by  which  the  "  something  "  comes  into  existence, 
and  the  process  of  learning,  by  which  it  comes  into  knowl- 
edge, are  at  bottom  one  and  the  same,  because  the  former 
process  necessarily  determines  the  latter,  as  the  condition 
of  its  reality.  That  is,  learning  is  the  evolution  of  all  our 
knowledge :  through  conception  and  words  we  inherit  the 
universality  of  the  "something,"  and  through  perception 
we  adapt  ourselves  to  its  unity.  Further  enlargement  on 
these  pregnant  principles  would  be  here  out  of  place ;  but 
the  sagacious  reader  will  divine  the  depth  of  their  signifi- 
cance, and  guess  what  light  may  yet  be  thrown  on  the 
origin  of  the  human  mind,  if  the  double  nature  of  intel- 
ligence as  both  sensibility  and  understanding  can  be  thus 
traced  to  the  double  nature  of  all  evolution  as  both  heredity 
and  adaptation. 

§  98.  These  fundamental  analyses  or  definitions  of  ex- 
istence and  knowledge  may  be  condensed  into  the  form  of 
continued  equations. 

I.  To  "  exist "  =  to  "be  something "  =  to  be  a  thing  of 
some  kind  =  to  be  only  one  specimen  of  only  one  species 
of  only  one  genus  =  to  be  a  unit-universal  of  generic  + 
specific  -h  reific  essence  =  to  be  an  immanently  self-related 
object  of  possible  knowledge  =  to  be  a  knowable  "  thing  in 
itself."  So  far,  then,  from  its  being  true  that  the  "thing 
in  itself  "  is  unknowable,  the  truth  is  that  nothing  but  the 
"thing  in  itself  "  is  knowable  at  all.  Kant  to  the  contrary 
notwithstanding,  the  phaenomenon  can  exist  solely  on  con- 
dition of  being,  also,  a  noumenon ;  the  Gegenstand  der 
Erfahrtmg  can  exist  solely  on  condition  of  being,  also,  a 
Ding  an  sich. 

II.  To  "  know  "  =  to  "know  something  "  =  to  know  some 
unit-universal  =  to  perceive  the  unit  and  to  conceive  the 
universal  in  one  indivisible  percept-concept  of  the  unit- 
universal.     Tersely,  the  knowing-faculty  in  general  could 


THE  TWO  THEORIES  OF  UNIVERSALS 


209 


not  "exist,"  except  as  identity  in  difference  of  two,  and 
only  two,  fundamental  functions:  perception  and  conception, 
sensibility  and  understanding,  experience  and  reason.  In 
the  last  analysis,  therefore,  Kant's  "  common  but  unknown 
root"  becomes  known  as  the  Apriori  of  Being  —  as  the 
absolute  law  that  whatever  "  exists"  must  "  be  something," 
and  that  whatever  "is  known"  must  "be  something," 
too  (§  84).  It  is  that  unconditioned  necessity  in  rerum 
natura  which  itself  conditions  and  determines  the  imma- 
nent relational  constitution  of  the  res  per  se.  It  is  those 
ultimate,  underived,  and  absolute  "  conditions  of  existence  " 
which  determine  a  priori,  in  an  ontological  sense,  (1)  the 
form  of  every  objective  or  subjective  reality  to  be  that  of 
the  unit-universal,  "something,"  or  "thing  in  itself,"  and 
(2)  the  form  of  every  particular  cognition  to  be  that  of  the 
percept-concept,  and  (3)  the  form  of  the  universal  knowing- 
faculty  to  be  that  of  the  identity  in  difference  of  perception 
and  conception,  or  sensibility  and  understanding,  or  ex- 
perience and  reason,  as  reciprocally  conditioning  factors  of 
all  human  knowledge. 

This  scientific  epistemology,  grounded  practically  in  the 
Darwinian  revolution  of  modern  science,  and  grounded 
theoretically  in  substitution  of  the  reformed  theory  of  uni- 
versals  for  the  Aristotelian  Paradox,  is  the  needed  logical 
completion  of  Aristotle's  half -protest  against  Plato  (§  79) ; 
and  its  truth  is  logical  disproof,  not  only  of  Plato's  x^pto-/!©?, 
but  also  of  Kant's  Trennung,  and  of  Hegel's  reiner  Begriff 
as  absolutes  Wissen  (§  93).  For,  if  Absolute  Being  is  neither 
pure  unity  nor  pure  universality,  but  the  Absolute  Unit- 
Universal  or  Real  Universe,  then  "absolute  knowledge" 
can  be  neither  "  pure  experience  "  nor  "  pure  thought,"  but 
only  the  absolute  percept-concept  of  the  absolute  unit- 
universal  in  the  self-knowledge  of  the  Absolute  I. 


VOL.  I  — 14 


CHAPTER  VIII 

TRANSITION  FROM  THE  I  TO  THE  WE 

§  99.   Our  investigations  have  thus  led  us  by  the  path  of 
rigorous  necessity  to  three  fundamentally  related  princi- 
ples, three  ultimate  laws,  each  of  which  in  its  own  right 
permeates  each  of  the  three  spheres  of  Being,  Thought, 
and  Knowledge,  and  all  of  which  together  constitute  what 
may  be  now  with  strict  propriety  called  the  Law  of  Unit- 
Universals,    as  demonstrated  identity  in   difference  of 
those  three  coincident  or  interpenetrating  and  interper- 
meating  spheres  of  Reality.     An  "  Unknowable  Reality  " 
would  be  simply  a  non-existent  or  pure  nothing:  the  All- 
Being  thinks  and  knows,  the  All-Thinking  is  and  knows, 
the  All-Knowing  is  and  thinks,  —  that  is,  the  All-Reality 
is,  thinks,  and  knows  itself  as  the  infinite  unit-universal 
of  Energy  in  the  form  of  a  Real,  Active,  and  Knowing  I. 
By  rectifying  and  completing  the  half-protest  of  Aristotle 
against  Plato,  and  thereby  rendering  obsolete  the  Aristo- 
telian Paradox,  the  Law  of  Unit-Universals  becomes  in 
truth  an  absolute  necessity  of  the  philosophical  reason  in 
all  its  valid  forms  and  processes,  and  may  now  be  formu- 
lated or  stated  somewhat  as  follows :  — 

I.  The  Apriori  of  Being  is  that  ultimate  and  underived 
condition  of  existence  by  which  whatever  really  exists 
must  exist  and  be  constituted  in  itself  as  A  Something  or 
Thing  of  Some  Kind :  that  is,  as  the  identity  in  difference 
of  generic  plus  specific  jo/ws  reific  essence  in  a  real  unit- 
universal  of  energy,  or  thing  in  itself,  —  as  the  immanent 
relational  constitution  of  a  noumenon-phaenomenon,  the 
only  object  of  actual  or  possible  knowledge.  This  is 
the  "principle  of  individuation,"  the  law  of  thinghood,  the 


TRANSITION  FROM  THE  I  TO  THE  WE 


211 


foundation  of  scientific  ontology,  or  Science  of  Being  as 
Universe  of  Units,  One  in  Many  and  Many  in  One. 

II.  The  Apriori  of  Thought  is  that  derivative  condition 
of  existence  by  which  every  real  cognition  of  what  really 
exists  must  itself  exist  and  be  constituted  as  A  Fercejtt- 
Concept  of  A  Something  or  Thing  of  Some  Kind:  that  is, 
must  be  itself  constituted  as  a  unit-universal  in  Thought, 
and  be  itself  determined  as  such,  however  incompletely  or 
approximately,  by  its  correlative  unit-universal  in  Being. 
The  essence  of  the  percept-concept  is  to  perceive  a  unit 
in  its  universal  (a  thing  in  its  kind)  and  to  conceive  a 
universal  in  all  its  units  (a  kind  in  all  its  things).  The 
essence  of  the  syllogism  itself,  the  norm  and  form  of  all 
scientific  or  empirical-rational  thinking,  is  to  be  nothing 
but  a  percept-concept:  (1)  the  major  conceives  all  the 
specimens  of  a  given  species  to  belong  to  a  certain  genus 
—  "  All  equilateral  triangles  are  equiangular  figures ;  "  (2) 
the  minor  perceives  some  particular  being  or  beings  to 
belong  to  that  species  —  "This   triangle  is  equilateral;" 

(3)  the  conclusion  infers  that  specimen  to  belong  to  that 
genus  —  "  Therefore,  this  triangle  is  an  equiangular  figure ;" 

(4)  the  whole  force  of  the  "  therefore  "  which  unites  con- 
clusion to  premises  lies  in  the  necessity  of  the  inherence 
of  the  specimen  in  the  species  and  of  the  species  in  the 
genus,  that  is,  of  the  individual  in  the  universal.  This 
is  reversal  of  the  Aristotelian  Paradox.  Every  syllogism  is 
a  highly  complex  percept-concept;  every  percept-concept 
is  a  virtual  syllogism,  mediating  implicitly  between  the 
specimen  and  the  genus  by  the  species.  The  Apriori  of 
Thought,  being  derived  from  and  determined  by  the 
Apriori  of  Being,  is  the  constitutive  principle  of  reason- 
ing and  the  foundation  of  logic  or  the  Science  of  Thought. 

III.  The  Apriori  of  Knowledge  is  that  derivative  con- 
dition of  existence  by  which  every  percept-concept  of  a 
unit-universal  of  Being  must  itself  exist  in  Thought  as  the 
cognitive  act,  however  incomplete  or  inaccurate  or  partially 
erroneous,  of  the  Knowing  I  in  the  Knowing  We :  that  is, 


212 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PniLOSOPHY 


as  the  act  of  a  unit-universal  of  energy  which  is  an  active 
Mmd,  capable  of  functioning  simultaneously  as  perception 
and  conception,  sensibility  and  understanding,  experience 
and  reason,  —  the  act  of  a  Mind  which  is  real,  because  it 
mdivisibly  energizes  (1)  empirically  in  the  perception  of 
units,  and  (2)  rationally  in  the  conception  of  universal, 
evolves  thereby  (3)  an  increasingly  true  percept-concept  of 
a  unit-universal  of  Being,  and  thereby  more  or  less  (4) 
really  knows.  The  Apriori  of  Knowledge,  being  derived 
from  that  of  Being  and  of  Thought  together,  is  the  foun- 
dation of  scientific  epistemology  in  its  three  stadia  of 
Knowledge  of  Knowledge,  Science  of  Science,  and  Philos- 
ophy of  Philosophy  (§  §  1-3,  58). 

§  100.    This  apriorism  of  the  philosophy  of  philosophy 
is  opposed  to  the  apriorism  of  Kant  and  his  continuators 
by  the  whole  diameter  of  speculation.     The  two  are  oppo- 
site poles.     The  essence  of  Kant's  apriorism  lies  in  this 
short  sentence  as  in  a  nutshell:   "We  must  of  necessity 
attribute  to  things  a  priori  all  the  properties  which  consti- 
tute the  conditions  without  which  we  cannot  think  them."* 
Here  the  conditions  of  existence  are  resolved  into  mere 
conditions  of  thought,  and  all  these  conditions  of  thought 
are  resolved  into  the  necessary  "attributing,"  the  necessary 
a  priori  activity,  of  the  human  understanding.     In  other 
words,  the  conditions  of  human  thought  determine  abso- 
lutely apriori  whatever  knowable  conditions  of  existence 
there  inay  be,  and,  beyond  our  human  experience  as  tlius 
determined  solely  by  our  human  understanding  a  priori, 
there  are  no  knowable  conditions  of  existence  at  all:  all 
knowable  conditions  of  existence  are  the  pure  a  j^riori 
work  or  product  of  the  human  mind.     This  is  the  Kantian 
apriorism.     Of  course  it  follows  that  the  existence  of  the 
hnman  mind  itself  is  determined  by  no  knowable  conditions 

1  ''Die  Ursache  aber  hievon  liegt  darin,  dass  wir  den  Dingen  a  priori 
alle  die  Eigenschafteii  nothwendig  beilegen  mussen,  die  <lie  Bedingungen 
aiisraachen,  unter  welchen  wir  sie  allein  denken."  (Kant  Werke. 
in.  277.)  '  ' 


t-r 
t 


TRANSITION  FROM  THE  I  TO  THE  WE  213 

whatsoever;  the  human  mind  is  presumably  self-existent 
and  unconditioned.  Against  this  Kantian  apriorism  stands 
opposed  the  Law  of  Unit-Universals,  with  its  threefold 
Apriori  of  Being,  Thought,  and  Knowledge,  by  which 
existence  determines  knowledge,  and  not  vice  verm  as  with 
Kant. 

In   the    German  development  of    the    Greek   concept- 
philosophy,  from  Kant  to  Hegel,  the  whole  of  "speculative 
philosophy  "  rests  on  two  uncriticised  postulates :  namely, 
the  possibility  of  separating,  as  well  as  distinguishing^ 
experience  and  reason  in  the  Empirical-Rational  or  Real  I 
(der  mit  Vernunft  hegahte  Sinnenmensch),  and  the  possi- 
bility of  criticising  or  investigating  reason  minus  experi- 
ence   in    the    purely   Rational    or    Pure    i    (Betvusstsein 
iiberhaupty    reine    Vernunft^    reines    Denken,    reines    Ich), 
Both  of  these  postulates  have  now  been  criticised  and 
demonstrated  to  be  untrue;  see  Tables  I  and  II  in  §  60, 
and  Table  III   in  §  71.     The  developed  Graeco-German 
concept-philosophy  has  no  foundation  but  the  Irrational 
Antithesis  of  I  and  Not- We;  with  that  it  stands  or  falls. 
The  character  and  fate  of  every  philosophy  hinge  at  last 
on  the  mode  of  its  transition  from  the  I  to  the  We;  yet 
no  philosophy  as  yet  has  seriously  considered  this  to  be 
important.     The  individual  I  is  posited  as  bottom  fact,  as 
not  needing  to  be  grounded  in  a  necessary  universal;  and 
the  We  is  just  taken  for  granted,  as  not  needing  to  be 
grounded  in  a  necessary  unit.     But  a  rational  transition 
from  the  I  to  the  We  is  rendered  impossible  by  stopping, 
as  Kant  and  his  followers  stop,  with  the  synthetic  unity 
of  apperception  as  "the  highest  principle  in   all  human 
knowledge."    It  can  only  be  effected  by  going  on  to  the 
generic  unity  of  apperception,  and  discovering  how  abso- 
lutely these  two  principles  condition  each  other   as  co- 
factors  of  real  personal  consciousness  and  personality  as 
such. 

Moreover,  this  strictly  rational  and  necessary  transition 
from  the  I  to  the  We  is  at  the  same  time  an  equally  rational 


214 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


and  necessary  transition  from  knowledge  of  the  internal 
world  to  knowledge  of  the  external  world.  It  is  as  strictly 
a  truth  of  reason  as  it  is  a  truth  of  experience  that  the 
human  I  is  absolutely  conditioned  on  the  human  We ;  and 
so,  also,  that  the  human  We  is  identity  in  difference  of 
the  internal  and  the  external  worlds.  Knowledge  of  the 
I  is  necessarily  knowledge  of  the  We;  knowledge  of  the 
We  is  necessarily  knowledge  of  the  external  world;  if  I 
know  enough  to  know  myself  as  a  unit-universal,  I  know 
my  knowledge  of  the  external  world,  since  knowledge  of 
either  is  knowledge  of  both.  But  this  necessary  transition 
from  the  I  to  the  We,  and  thereby  to  the  external  world, 
carries  philosophy  from  subjectivism  to  objectivism  — 
carries  it  of  sheer  necessity  back  from  German  conceptual- 
ism  or  idealism  to  Greek  realism,  and  forward  from  this  to 
the  new  realism  of  modern  science.  Thus  the  "Retreat 
upon  Kant !  "  becomes  now  —  "  Retreat  upon  Aristotle,  and 
advance  to  Darwin! "  This  shifting  of  the  centre  of  grav- 
ity from  idealism  to  realism  revolutionizes  philosophy, 
yet  at  the  same  time  restores  it  to  that  true  line  of  evolu- 
tion from  which  idealism,  whether  German,  Anglican,  or 
what  not,  had  for  a  while  perverted  it.  The  entire  revo- 
lution is  formulated  in  the  development  of  the  Law  of 
XJnit-Universals  out  of  the  Aristotelian  Paradox,  or,  what 
is  the  same  thing,  discovery  of  the  Apriori  of  Being  beneath 
the  Apriori  of  Thought  as  the  unconditioned  condition  of 
all  knowledge  as  such. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  TRANSITION  IN  KANT 

§  101.  Kant  never  investigates  the  origin  or  genesis  of 
the  Pure  I,  since  this  to  him  is  not  a  reality  or  real  sub- 
stance at  all,  but  a  "mere  logical  subject."  He  considers 
the  question  of  the  substantiality  of  the  I  to  be  an  insoluble 
problem.  He  accepts  the  dualism  of  sensibility  and  un- 
derstanding, or  sense  and  intellect,  as  a  mere  empirical 
datum  of  consciousness,  unexplained  and  inexplicable 
except  so  far  as  they  may  "  perhaps  "  arise  from  "  a  com- 
mon but  to  us  unknown  root."  He  separates  the  two  ele- 
ments as  practically  ultimate,  eliminates  the  empirical, 
isolates  the  rational,  and  makes  the  latter,  as  mere  "act 
of  synthesis"  or  "synthetical  unity  of  apperception,"  the 
"highest  principle  in  human  knowledge."  The  whole 
fabric  of  the  Kritikismus,  therefore,  rests  on  a  separation 
(Tren7iung)  of  experience  and  reason  which  renders  it  quite 
as  incapable  of  yielding  an  adequate  concept  of  the  Real  I, 
that  is,  of  real  personality,  as  an  equivalent  dualism  of 
sense  and  intellect,  by  Zeller's  showing  (§  77),  rendered 
the  system  of  Aristotle. 

From  such  a  "  mere  logical  subject "  or  Unreal  I,  mani- 
festly, no  transition  to  a  Real  We  was  logically  possible. 
The  inexorable  consequence  of  Kant's  premises  or  data, 
stated  above,  is  that  mt/  " consciousness-in-general"  cannot 
possibly  transcend  the  indeterminate  series  of  conscious 
states  in  me :  an  indeterminate  series  whose  sole  univer- 
sality consists  in  their  being  all  strung  on  the  "I  think" 
that  must  "accompany"  each  of  those  states  to  make  it 
"mine,"  —  an  indeterminate  series  whose  sole  unity  con- 


216 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  KANT 


217 


sists  in  such  indeterminate  simplicity  as  can  be  discovered 
in  the  bare  "  I "  of  the  "  I  think."  But  such  indeterminate 
unity  or  simplicity  as  this  is  wholly  insuflacient  to  deter- 
mine the  I  as  real,  that  is,  as  a  real  unit-universal  of 
energy,  or  substantial  personality,  or  One  of  the  We. 
For  Kant  finds  in  the  "  I "  of  the  "  I  think  '*  nothing  but  a 
"merely  logical  or  transcendental  subject,"  not  at  all  a 
substantial,  or  real,  or  Knowing  I;  it  is  "an  unknown  x," 
which  is  known  indeed  to  join  state  to  state  in  me  (not  in 
you)  like  beads  on  a  string,  but  of  which  nothing  more 
can  be  known  than  that  it  is  an  "act  of  synthesis,"  "the 
understanding  itself,"  "the  faculty  of  conjoining  a  priori" 
empirical  states  to  which  it  is  itself  utterly  foreign.  Such 
an  I  as  this  is  a  mere  "  faculty  "  of  me,  a  mere  element  of 
my  personality,  an  abstract  ens  rationis;  it  is  certainly  not 
a  Knowing  I,  and  from  it  there  is  no  possible  rational 
transition  to  a  Keal  We.  Thus  Kant  arrives  at  a  frag- 
ment of  the  Eeal  I ;  but  he  arrives  at  nothing  else  what- 
soever, and  avoids  rigorous  solipsism  by  nothing  but  an 
arbitrary  volition  against  reason. 

§  102.  It  is  exceedingly  curious  to  note  how  Kant*s  con- 
scious impotency  to  effect  a  rational  transition  from  the 
Unreal  or  Pure  I  to  the  Real  We  by  any  principles  known 
to  him  betrays  itself  in  his  treatment  of  the  subject  — 
nay,  in  the  very  phrases  he  is  compelled  to  employ.  For 
example :  — 

**  I  cannot  have  the  least  idea  of  a  thinking  being  by  any  ex- 
ternal experience,  but  solely  through  self-consciousness.  Therefore 
such  objects  are  nothing  else  than  the  transference  [  Uebertragung] 
of  this  my  own  consciousness  to  other  things,  which  only  by  that 
means  are  represented  as  thinking  beings."  ^ 

1  "Nun  kann  ich  von  einem  denkenden  "Wesen  durch  keine  anssere 
Erfahrung,  sondem  bios  durch  das  Selbstbewuastsein  die  mindeste  Vor- 
stellung  haben.  Also  sind  dergleichen  Gegenstande  nichts  weiter,  als  die 
Uebertragung  dieses  meines  Bewusstseins  auf  andere  Dinge,  welche  nur 
dadurch  als  denkende  Wesen  vorgestellt  werden."  (Kritik  der  reinen 
Vemunft,  Werke,  III.  277.) 


Such  shallowness  as  this  confidence  in  an  unwarranted 
analogy  is  by  no  means  characteristic  of  this  profound  and 
acute  analyst.     According  to  Kant  himself,  what  is  my 
self -consciousness?    Nothing  but  that  indeterminate  unity 
of  my  empirical  conscious  states  which  results  from  the 
transcendental  "act  of  synthesis,"  by  which  my  "under- 
standing" or  "synthetical  unity  of  apperception"  adds  an 
a  priori  or  transcendental  "I-think  "  to  each  of  those  states, 
and  thereby  conjoins  them  all  a  priori  in  an  indeterminate 
series  of  "I-thinks."     That  is  all.     Hence  my  self -con- 
sciousness can  never  transcend  this  indeterminate  series, 
or  give  to  it  a  determinate  unity;  it  transcends  each  of  my 
conscious  states,  but  can  never  transcend  itself.     It  follows 
clearly  and  necessarily  that  my  mere  self-consciousness  can 
never  arrive  at  knowledge  of  itself  as  "  a  thinking  being; " 
for  this  would  be  to  transcend  itself,  pass  from  the  thing 
to  the  kind  as  a  real  species  beyond  itself,  and  give  itself 
a  determinate  unity  as  One  of  the  We.     Most  certainly,  if 
I  am  to  know  myself  at  all  as  One  of  the  We,  it  must  be  by 
knowing  Others  of  the  We.     But  this  knowledge  of  Others 
beyond  myself  is  a  matter  of  "  external  experience  "  alone 
—  a  matter  of  perception  as  well  as  of  conception;  and,  if 
perception  is  not  admissible  as  an  essential  element  of  all 
knowledge,  all  knowledge  of  my  determinate  unity  as  "a 
thinking  being  "  becomes  impossible.     Self-consciousness, 
in  other  words,  can  never  determine  itself  as  "a  thinking 
being,"  that  is,  as  a  unit-universal  or  real  person  or  One 
of  the  We,  without  the  aid  of  "external  experience"  of 
Others  of  the  We  —  without  the  aid  of  race-consciousness 
or  generic  unity  of  apperception.     Kant's  first  sentence 
above,  therefore,  needs  to  be  reversed,  so  as  to  read:  "I 
cannot  have  the  least  idea  of  a  thinking  being  through 
self-consciousness  alone,  but  solely  by  the  aid  of  external 
experience." 

The  second  sentence  simply  makes  a  bad  matter  worse : 
"  Such  objects  [as  thinking  beings]  are  nothing  else  than 
the  transference  of  this  my  own  consciousness  to  other 


218 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


things,  which  only  by  that  means  are  represented  as  think- 
ing beings." 

What  are  these  "other  things"?  Certainly  not  "things 
in  themselves,"  for  of  these  Kant  denies  all  knowledge; 
and  certainly  not  "objects  of  experience,"  for  these,  as 
nothing  but  combined  products  of  my  own  sensibility  and 
my  own  understanding  according  to  the  a  priori  laws  of  my 
own  general  faculty  of  knowledge  (ErkenntnissvermOgen), 
he  makes  a  part  of  my  own  "thinking  being."  Conse- 
quently, according  to  Kant,  there  are  no  "other  things" 
whatsoever  to  which  I  can  "transfer  this  my  own  con- 
sciousness." 

But  let  us  waive  this  fatal  objection  altogether,  and  ask : 
what  is  "this  my  own  consciousness"  which  is  to  be 
"  transferred  "  so  mysteriously  to  these  mysterious  "  other 
things"?  Certainly  not  my  empirical  consciousness,  for 
Kant  would  never  maintain  the  absurdity  that  I  can 
"  transfer  "  my  single  and  absolutely  inalienable  conscious 
states  to  any  possible  "other  thing; "  and  certainly  not  my 
pure  consciousness,  for  this  Kant  makes  the  mere  "  a  priori 
synthesis  "  of  my  conscious  states,  and  the  synthesis  must 
be  inseparable  from  the  states  synthesized  in  me.  There 
is,  then,  no  consciousness  of  mine  whatsoever,  empirical 
or  pure,  which  I  can  possibly  "transfer;"  and,  even  if  I 
had  such  a  separable  or  transferable  consciousness,  there  is, 
as  has  just  been  shown,  no  "  other  thing  "  to  which  I  could 
possibly  "transfer"  it.  Kant's  whimsical  hypothesis  of 
"transference,"  therefore,  which  contradicts  every  princi- 
ple of  his  Kritikismus,  is  plainly  no  legitimate  result  of  it, 
but  rather  a  desperate  device  to  avoid  solipsism.  The 
device,  however,  is  as  ineffectual  as  it  is  desperate,  and 
must  be  dismissed  as  a  surrender  at  discretion  to  mere 
"common  sense,"  a  virtual  confession  that  from  the  Pure 
I  to  the  Real  We  no  rational  transition  is  possible. 

If,  nevertheless,  it  be  argued  in  Kant's  defence  that  he 
never  meant  an  actual  or  literal  transference  of  my  indi- 
vidual consciousness  to  "other  things,"  but  only  the  in- 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  KANT 


219 


dubitable  discovery  of  such  an  analogy  between  myself  and 
certain  "other  things  "  as  justifies  me  in  classing  them  and 
myself  together  as  "  thinking  beings, "  the  reply  must  be 
that,  if  allowed  to  be  valid,  the  defence  itself  demolishes 
the  Kritikismiis  from  base  to  cope.  On  Kantian  principles 
such  a  discovery  is  absolutely  unthinkable,  since  it  pre- 
supposes, contrary  to  Kant  himself,  that  both  myself  and 
these  "  other  things  "  are  known  things  in  themselves.  If 
I  know  of  myself  that  I  am  "  a  thinking  being  "  per  se,  and 
if  I  know  of  certain  "other  things"  that  they,  too,  are 
"thinking  beings"  per  se, — that  is,  if  lean  indeed  make 
the  alleged  discovery,  no  matter  how,  —  it  follows  of 
necessity  that  these  "other  things,"  which  ex  hypothesi  are 
utterly  independent  of  me,  my  consciousness,  and  my  very 
existence,  become  known  in  themselves  in  virtue  of  the 
discovery  itself.  That  is,  they  must  not  only  be  known 
things  in  themselves,  but  must  also  be  known  consciousnesses 
in  themselves];  otherwise,  the  alleged  discovery  is  not  made 
at  all.^  Such  a  defence  as  this  may  be  very  good  "common 
sense,"  but  it  is  upheaval  and  destruction  of  the  thing 
defended;  for  no  one  will  dispute  the  statement  that  the 
whole  Kritikismus  has  for  its  substructural  principle  the 
doctrine  that  phaenomena,  or  things  as  they  appear,  are 
the  sole  objects  of  knowledge,  and  that  noumena,  or  things 
as  they  are  in  themselves,  are  utterly  unknowable.  The 
defence,  therefore,  ceases  to  be  a  defence  altogether,  and 
becomes  a  mere  corroboration  of  the  criticism.  If  con- 
formed strictly  to  the  principles  of  his  own  philosophy, 
Kant's  second  sentence  would  have  to  read :  "  Such  objects 
as  thinking  beings  may  exist  phaenomenally  or  for  me  in 
my  empirical  consciousness,  but  they  can  never  be  known 
to  exist  noumenally  or  for  themselves  beyond  it ;  in  my  pure 
self-consciousness,  which  is  mere  unity  of  apperception 

*  **  Ich  berufe  mich  hier  lediglich  auf  deine  eigene  innere  Anschauung  ; 
von  aussen  dir  anzudemonstrireu,  was  nur  in  dir  selbst  seyn  kaun,  vermag 
ich  nicht."  (Fichte,  Versuch  einer  neueu  Darstellung  der  Wissenschafts- 
lehre,  Werke,  I.  531.) 


220 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


and  admits  no  plurality  of  self-consciousnesses,  they  cannot 
possibly  exist  at  all."  That,  however  would  be  solipsism, 
the  necessary  terminus  of  all  logical  or  self -consistent 
idealism.  Kant's  quoted  sentences  do  not  untie  the  Gor- 
dian  knot — they  only  cut  it  by  a  tour  de  forccy  which  is 
the  abandonment  and  end  of  all  philosophy. 

§  103.  This  flighty  hypothesis  of  a  possible  "transfer- 
ence of  this  my  consciousness  "  (the  obvious  origin  of  W. 
K.  Clifford's  still  more  flighty  hypothesis  of  other  "  think- 
ing objects  "  as  merely  my  "  ejects  ")  proves  clearly  enough 
that,  with  all  his  ingenuity  and  fertility  of  resources,  Kant 
felt  his  own  powerlessuess  to  derive  from  the  principles  of 
his  Kritik  any  mode  of  transition  from  the  I  to  the  We 
'which  should  be  other  than  merely  volitional  or  arbitrary. 
The  Prolegomena^^  published  several  years  after  the  Kritik 
as  a  restatement  of  it,  shows  that  in  the  interval  he  had 
become  increasingly  conscious  of  this  powerlessness;  for 
the  language  now  used  carries  an  almost  cynical  confession 
that  he  himself  perceives  his  inability  to  transform  the 
merely  wilful  transition  into  a  logical  and  rational  one. 
But  he  endeavors  to  make  the  best  of  a  bad  case. 

In  the  statement  of  his  famous  distinction  between 
"  judgments  of  perception  "  as  possessing  merely  "  subjec- 
tive validity,"  and  "judgments  of  experience"  as  possess- 
ing "objective  validity,"  he  arbitrarily  and  illogically 
interprets  the  latter  as  objective  validity  for  others  as  well 
a,sfor  himself.  This  is  acknowledging  these  others  to  be 
already  known  as  co-equal  with  himself,  L  e.  both  noumen- 
ally  and  phaenomenally  known  as  thinking  beings^  or 
conscious  things  in  themselves,  in  contradiction  of  his  own 
fundamental  standpoint.  For  the  "I  think,"  with  which 
my  pure  self-consciousness  "  accompanies  "  every  state  of 
my  empirical  consciousness,  and  by  which  it  combines 
all  my  states  in  one  series,  and  in  virtue  of  which  alone  it 

1  "  Sie  [d.  h.  die  Prolegomena]  sind,  was  die  didaktische  Kunst  betriflft, 
Kants  Meisterstiick."  (K.  Fischer,  Geschichte  der  neuem  Philosophic, 
III.  551.) 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  KANT 


221 


> 


makes  these  "mine,"  cannot,  of  course,  be  attached  to  the 
states  of  any  empirical  consciousness  which  is  not  mine : 
its  sole  function  is  to  make  my  own  conscious  states  mine, 
and  cannot  without  absurdity  be  "  transferred  "  to  any  pos- 
sible empirical  consciousness  which  is  not  mine.     No  one 
has  admitted  this  more  clearly  or  more  emphatically  than 
Kant  himself:    "Every  manifold  of  intuition  refers  of 
necessity  to  the  '  I  think, '  in  the  same  subject  in  which  this 
manifold  is  found,'' ^     (The  italics  are  ours.)     Whatever 
"universality"  or  "objective  validity,"  therefore,  I  may 
attribute  to  my  own  "judgments  of  experience,"  must  be 
logically  limited  to  such  universality  and  objective  validity 
as  may  obtain  in  me;  it  cannot  logically  be  attributed  to 
any  judgment  in  you.     From  all  attribution  to  his  own 
judgments  of  any  "  objective  validity  "  for  any  other  con- 
sciousness, Kant  is  absolutely  precluded  by  his  own  most 
essential  principles ;  if  he  attributes  to  them  any  validity 
beyond  his  own  personal  "I  think,"  he  does  it  in  glaring 
contradiction  of  himself.     His  own  "judgments  of  experi- 
ence "  may  perhaps  hold  good  universally  throughout  his 
own  empirical  consciousness,  and  be,  therefore,  objectively 
valid /or  himself     But,  if  he  tries  for  that  reason  to  make 
them  necessary,  universal,  and  objectively  valid  for  you, 
he  turns  into  nonsense  his  great  doctrine  of  the  "  synthetic 
unity  of  apperception,"  by  making  his  own  "I  think" 
overleap  the  chasm  between  him  and  you^  by  confounding 
his  "I  think"  with  your  "I  think,"  and  Ms  "I"  with  your 
"I, "and  by  setting  up  this  "merely  logical  subject"  of  his 
own  consciousness  2LS  a,  second  and  usurping  subject  in  yours. 
This  is   wilfulness   incarnate.      The  supposition   of  any 
Other-I  whatsoever,  except  as  a  mere  phaenomenon  in  his 
own  empirical  consciousness,  and  as  dependent  for  its  very 
existence,  therefore,  on  his  own  "I  think,"  is  throwiug 
all  logical  consistency  to  the  dogs.     And  this  is  precisely 
what  he  does,  in  shrinking  from  the  solipsism  which  lies 
implicit  in  all  his  premises. 

1  Kr.  d.  r.  Vernunft,  Werke,  III.  116. 


222 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  KANT 


223 


§  104.  Turning  to  Kant's  own  language  on  this  topic, 
nevertheless,  it  is  interesting  to  note  how  freely  and 
naively  he  uses  the  expressions  "we,"  "us,"  "our,"  "our- 
selves," "every  one  else,"  "everybody,"  and  so  forth,  as  if 
there  were  no  necessity  of  justifying  them  rationally  by  a 
logical  transition  from  the  I  to  the  We ;  and  how  he  thus 
begs  the  whole  question  of  the  Kritikismus  by  taking  for 
granted,  as  a  mere  empirical  datum  of  "common  sense," 
that  very  plurality  of  subjects  which  he  is  bound  to  account 
for  rationally,  but  does  not  and  cannot  account  for  at  all. 
For  the  main  thesis  of  the  Kritikismus  is  to  prove  the 
reality  of  "pure  knowledge^a  j!>Wori,"  as  the  condition  of 
all  necessity  and  universality,  that  is,  of  all  objective 
validity,  in  human  experience  as  such ;  in  other  words,  to 
explain  the  possibility  of  "synthetic  judgments  a  jn-iorV^ 
by  proving  the  existence  of  a  universal  "pure  reason" 
which  shall  legislate  a  priori  for  all  possible  experience, 
not  only  in  himself,  but  also  in  all  mankind.  Yet  he  seeks 
to  prove  this  universal  "pure  reason"  from  premises  or 
principles  which  forbid  the  recognition  of  any  save  a 
strictly  individual  "pure  reason"  of  his  own.  All  such 
expressions  as  the  above,  therefore,  being  unjustified  by 
any  rational  transition  from  the  I  to  the  We,  do  but  betray 
a  purely  arbitrary  and  naive  admission  of  a  fact  too 
stubborn  to  be  denied  or  doubted,  yet  impossible  to  be 
established  by  the  "synthetic  unity  of  apperception,"  if 
unsupplemented  by  the  generic  unity  of  apperception: 
namely,  the  fact  of  a  human  race.  These  are  the  passages 
to  be  considered :  — 

"All  our  judgments  are  at  first  mere  judgments  of  perception; 
they  are  valid  merely  for  ourselves,  that  is,  for  our  subject ;  and 
only  afterwards  do  we  give  them  a  new  reference,  namely,  to  an 
object,  and  insist  [wolleriy  —  so  translated  forcibly  and  correctly  by 
Bax]  they  shall  be  valid  for  ourselves  at  all  times,  and,  likewise, 
for  everybody."  * 

"  *  Objective  validity '  means  precisely  the  same  thing  as  '  validity 

1  Prolegomena,  §  18,  Werke,  IV.  47. 


* 


which  is  necessary  and  universal  for. everybody.'  .  .  .  We  will  ex- 
plain this.     That  the  room  is  warm,  the  sugar  sweet,  the  worm- 
wood bitter,  are  merely  subjectively  valid  judgments.     I  do  not  in 
the  least  expect  [verlange]  that  I  at  all  times  shall,  or  that  every 
one  else  will,  make  these  judgments  as  I  make  them  now.     They 
express  only  a  reference  of  two  sensations  to  the  same  subject, 
namely,  myself,  and  that,  too,  only  in  my  present  state  of  percep- 
tion ;  and  for  that  reason  they  cannot  be  supposed  to  declare  the 
nature  of  the  object.     Such  judgments  I  call  judgments  of  percei> 
tion.     The  case  is  quite  different  with  the  judgment  of  experience 
What  experience  teaches  me  under  stated  circumstances,  it  must 
teach  me  at  all  times,  and  likewise  eveiybody,  and  its  validity  is 
not  limited  to  the  subject  or  to  its  present  state.     Therefore  I 
characterize  all  such  judgments  as  objectively  valid.     For  example, 
if  I  say,  '  the  air  is  elastic,'  this  judgment  is  at  first  only  a  judg- 
ment of  perception ;  I  only  relate  two  sensations  in  my  senses  to 
one  another.    If  I  insist  [will  icK]  that  it  shall  be  called  a  judgment 
of  experience,  I  require  [verlange]  this  [subjective]  correlation  to 
stand  under  an  [objective]  condition  which  makes  it  universally 
valid.     Therefore,  I  insist  [ich  will]  that  I  at  all  times,  and,  like- 
wise,  everybody,  must  necessarily  combine  the  same  perceptions 
[that  is,  make  the  same  correlation  of  subject  and  predicate,  the 
same  judgment]  under  the  same  cncumstances."! 

§  105.  In  these  significant  passages  of  his  two  greatest 
works,  what  reason  does  Kant  assign  for  believing  in  the 
existence  of  any  I  but  his  own?  None  whatever.  Despite 
the  earlier  hypothesis  of  a  "transference  of  this  my  con- 
sciousness "  to  "other  things,"  he  afterwards  simply  pos- 
tulates the  existence  of  other  I's,  without  offering  any 
genuine  reason  for  it  in  either  case.  He  cannot  help 
believing  it,  but  he  does  not  know  why  he  believes  it. 
Instead  of  a  reason,  he  assigns  only  an  act  of  will  in  his 
thrice-repeated  "I  insist"  — in  his  "I  expect,"  "I  re- 
quire," "I  transfer  my  own  consciousness  to  other  things, 
which  only  by  that  means  are  represented  as  thinking 
beings."  But  why  need  they  be  represented  or  at  all  con- 
ceived as  thinking  beings,  when  such  conception  vitiates 

1  Prolegomena,  §  19,  Werke,  IV.  47,  48. 


224 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


and  nullifies  all  his  reasoning  ?  No  reason,  no  necessity, 
no  justification  is  shown  or  can  be  shown  for  arbitrarily 
injecting  consciousness  into  "other  things,"  and  thereby 
converting  them,  in  violation  of  every  principle  of  Kritikis- 
TnuSf  into  known  things  in  themselves. 

The  real  reason  for  this  necessary  and  universal  belief 
in  the  existence  of  Other  I's  is  hidden  from  him  by  his 
own  theory  of  the  Pure  I.  This  left  him  satisfied  with 
an  unsubstantial  or  Unreal  I,  a  "merely  logical  subject." 
If  he  had  only  discerned  that  it  is  impossible  to  arrive  at 
the  consciousness  of  "  my  self  "  (which  must  be  a  deter- 
minate unit  or  Real  I)  except  through  consciousness  of 
"other  selves"  (which  must  be  a  determinate  universal  or 
Real  We),  and  vice  versa,  —  that  is,  if  he  had  only  supple- 
mented the  synthetic  with  the  generic  unity  of  appercep- 
tion as  two  reciprocal  conditions,  just  as  necessary  to  each 
other  in  the  real  unity  of  personal  consciousness  as  subject 
and  predicate  are  necessary  to  each  other  in  the  real  unity 
of  the  judgment,  —  he  could  readily  have  found  a  rational 
transition  from  the  I  to  the  We.  But  he  found  none  such, 
and  relied  at  last,  as  the  above  passages  show,  on  a  mere 
volition,  "I  insist,"  as  the  ground  of  his  belief  in  "other 
thinking  beings."  One  can  almost  see  the  ironical  smile 
with  which  the  great  reasoner  must  have  written  down  the 
words;  for  no  one  could  understand  better  than  he  the 
utter  arbitrariness  of  his  own  procedure,  in  a  case  where 
nothing  but  arbitrariness,  it  iB^twie,  was  possible  for  him. 
The  fact  remains  that  the  whole  Kritikismus  collapses  in 
this  failure  to  effect  a  rational  transition  from  the  I  to  the 
We ;  for  it  leaves  "  synthetic  judgments  a  priori  "  necessary 
and  universal,  or  objectively  valid,  for  me  and  for  nobody 
else,  and  therefore  makes  his  "judgments  of  experience" 
impossible  in  the  sense  propounded  and  demanded: 
namely,  that  of  "objective  validity  for  me  at  all  times, 
and,  likewise,  for  everybody." 


\ 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  TRANSITION  IN  FICHTE 

§  106.  It  was  the  baffling,  almost  mocking  evasiveness  of 
Kant*s  Pure  I,  a  "merely  logical  subject"  which  is  con- 
scious of  itself  as  nothing  but  a  faculty^  of  conjoining 
single  elements  into  one  intuition  and  many  intuitions  or 
states  into  one  consciousness,  and  of  which  not  even  sub- 
stance can  be  predicated,  that  drove  the  powerful  and  ear- 
nest mind  of  Fichte  into  rebellion  against  his  master.  His 
intensely  ethical  nature  and  consciousness  revolted  at  the 
Kantian  evaporation  of  personality  into  an  Unreal  I  —  a 
spontaneous,  empty,  unsubstantial  "  act  of  synthesis."  Un- 
fortunately he,  too,  inherited  the  Aristotelian  Paradox,  and 
did  not  dream  of  questioning  the  Kantian  separation  of 
reason  and  experience.^  Hence  he  struggled  in  vain  in  his 
own  philosophy  to  overcome  the  logical  necessity  of  an 
Unreal  I  which  lay  implicit  in  those  premises.     He  ex- 

1  "  Ich  exiatire  als  Intelligenz,  die  sich  lediglich  ihres  Verbindungsver- 
mogens  bewusst  ist,"  u.  s.  w.  (Kant,  Kritik  der  reinen  Vernunft,  Werke, 
IlL  131.) 

*  "Nun  hat  die  Philosophie  den  Grund  aller  Erfahrung  anzugeben ; 
ihr  Object  liegt  sonach  nothwendig  aiLsser  aller  Erfahrung.''  (Erste  Ein- 
leitung  in  die  Wissenschaftslehre,  Werke,  I.  425.)—  "Wir  konnen  dieses 
Bewusstseyn  [des  Besonderen]  Wahmehmung  nennen,  oder  Erfahrung. 
Es  hat  sich  gefunden,  dass  im  Wissen  von  der  blossen  Wahmehmung 
abgesehen  werden  muss."  (Darstellung  der  Wissenschaftslehre,  Werke, 
II.  7.)  —  "Zu  diesem  Denken  des  Wissens  nun,  ak  des  Einen  und  sich 
selbst  gleichen  in  allem  besonderen  Wissen,  und  wodurch  dieses  letztere 
nicht  dieses,  sondern  eben  iiberhaupt  Wissen  ist,  ist  der  Leser  hier  einge- 
laden,  wo  vom  absoluten  Wissen  gesprochen  wird."  {Ibid.  II.  14.)  The 
italics  are  all  Fichte's.  He,  like  Aristotle,  cancelled  the  individual  differ- 
ence as  unknowable  :  nothing  was  knowable  but  rb  cWos  t6  iv6v. 

VOL.   I. — 15 


\ 


I 

\ 


226 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


hausted  a  fine  philosophical  genius  in  the  effort  to  evolve 
Kant's  disembodied  ghost  of  an  I  into  the  truth  of  life.  He 
did  indeed  clothe  it  with  some  of  the  attributes  of  vitality, 
yet  he  left  it  at  last  a  phantom  still. 

Although  beginning  his  career  with  a  firm  persuasion 
that  he  was  only  interpreting  Kant's  system  to  the  world 
in  a  more  intelligible  and  explicit  fashion  than  that  of  its 
f  ramer,  Fichte  soon  discovered,  especially  after  Kant  had  dis- 
owned the  interpretations  of  his  self-appointed  expounder, 
that    the   work  of   exposition    involved,  not   merely   far- 
reaching  developments,  but  also  fundamental  corrections  of 
Kant's  own  conception  of  the  Pure  I  as  "  nothing  more 
than  a  transcendental    subject   of  thoughts  =  ic,  which  is 
known  solely  b}^  the  thoughts  that  are  its  predicates,  and  of 
which,  apart  from  these  thoughts,  we  can  never  have  the 
the   least    conception "  —  "a   simple,    contentless,    utterly 
empty  representation,  /,  of  which  we  cannot  say  that  it  is 
a  concept  at  all,  but  a  mere  conciousness  which  accompanies 
all  concepts  "  —  "  the  concept  of  a  subject  taken  here  in  a 
merely  logical  sense."  ^     Such  an  I  as  this,  Fichte  clearly 
perceived,  would  be  phantasmal,  unreal,  incapable  even  of 
the  one  essential  function  assigned  to  it  in  the  synthetic 
unity  of  apperception,  as  the  condition  of  all  experience. 
Even  Kant  himself  confesses  that  "  the  absolute  unity  of 
apperception,  the  simple  I,  in  the  representation  [ich  derike] 
to  which  all  the  conjunction  or  disjunction  that  constitutes 
thought  is  related,  becomes  important  for  itself,  although  I 
have  found  out  nothing  about  the  subject's  constitution  or 
subsistence :  apperception  is  something  real,  and  its  unity 
lies  already  in  its  possibility."  ^     Surely,  reasoned  Fichte, 
that  which  in  all  thinking  whatsoever  really  joins  or  dis- 
joins, that  is,  actively  relates,  must  be  itself  a  real  activity 
—  something  vastly  more  than  a  mere  subject  {blouses  Sub- 
ject), a  mere  logical  abstraction,  a  mere  negation  of  all  real 
activity.     Without  an  I  both  real  and  active,  all  synthetical 

1  Kritik  der  reinen  Vernunft,  Werke,  III.  276,  285. 

2  Ihid.  III.  285. 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  FICHTE 


227 


unity  of  apperception  necessarily  vanishes,  and  with  it  all 
real  thinking.  But  a  real  and  active  I  must  be  a  real  unit 
—-object  as  well  as  subject— 'Oh]ect  to  itself  and  thereby 
conscious  of  itself  as  subject-object.  His  argument,  which 
marked  a  new  epoch  in  speculation,  is  perhaps  best  pre- 
sented in  his  Attempt  at  a  New  Exposition  of  the  Doctrine 
of  Science,  translated  here  with  his  own  italics : 

§  107.    "  Let  us  advance  to  a  higher  speculative  standpoint. 

"  1.  Think  yourself,  and  observe  how  you  do  it :  that  was  my 
first  demand.  Observe  you  must,  in  order  to  understand  me  (for 
I  spoke  of  something  which  could  be  only  in  yourself),  and  in 
order  to  find  what  I  said  to  you  true  in  your  own  experience. 
This  attention  to  ourselves  in  that  act  was  the  subjective  element 
common  to  us  both.  Your  procedure  in  the  thinking  of  yourself, 
which  in  me,  too,  was  the  same  procedure,  was  that  to  which  you 
attended;  it  was  the  object  of  our  investigation,  the  objective  ele- 
ment common  to  us  both. 

**  But  now  I  say  to  you :  observe  your  observation  of  your  own 
act  of  self-position ;  observe  what  you  did  in  the  just  made  inves- 
tigation itself,  and  how  you  did  it,  in  order  to  observe  yourself. 
What  was  before  the  subjective  element,  make  that  itself  the  ob- 
ject of  a  new  investigation  which  we  are  now  instituting. 

"  2.  The  point  which  I  have  here  in  mind  is  not  so  easily  hit ; 
but,  if  it  is  missed,  everything  is  missed,  for  on  it  rests  my  whole 
doctrine.  Let  the  reader  permit  me,  then,  to  conduct  him  through 
a  passage-way  and  place  him  as  closely  as  possible  before  that 
which  he  has  to  consider. 

"  When  you  are  conscious  of  any  object,  — yonder  wall,  perhaps, 
—  you  are  properly  conscious,  as  you  have  conceded,  of  your  think- 
ing of  the  wall,  and  only  so  far  as  you  are  conscious  of  that  is  a 
consciousness  of  the  wall  possible.  But,  in  order  to  be  conscious 
of  your  thinking,  you  must  be  conscious  of  yourself. 

"  You  are  conscious  of  yourself,  you  say ;  you  must  distinguish, 
therefore,  your  thinking  I  from  the  T  thought  in  the  thinking  of  it. 
But,  in  order  that  you  may  be  able  to  do  this,  again  must  that 
which  thinks  in  that  thinking  be  object  of  a  higher  thinking,  to 
become  a  possible  object  of  consciousness ;  and  you  at  once  obtain 
a  new  subject,  which  is  conscious  now  of  that  which  was  previously 
the  self-consciousness.     Here,  again,  I  argue  as  before;  and,  after 


\'l 


228 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  FICHTE 


220 


we  have  once  began  to  reason  according  to  this  law,  you  can  no- 
where show  me  a  place  where  we  can  stop;  we  shall  need  forever, 
consequently,  for  every  consciousness  a  new  consciousness  whose 
object  is  the  first,  and  shall  never  arrive,  therefore,  at  the  possi- 
bility of  assuming  a  real  consciousness.  You  are  conscious  of 
yourself  as  object  [des  Beumssten]  merely  in  so  far  as  you  are  con- 
scious of  yourself  as  subject  [des  Bewusstseyenden] ;  but  then  the 
subject  is  again  the  object,  and  you  must  again  become  conscious 
of  the  subject  of  this  object,  and  so  on  ad  infinitum;  and  so  you 
may  see  how  you  reach  a  first  consciousness. 

**  Shortly :  in  this  way  consciousness  cannot  possibly  be  ex- 
plained. 

*'  Once  more:  what  was  the  essence  of  the  argument  just  gone 
through,  and  the  true  reason  why  consciousness  was  inconceivable 
in  that  way  ?  This :  every  object  comes  into  consciousness  merely 
on  condition  that  I  be  conscious  also  of  myself,  the  conscious  sub- 
ject.  This  proposition  is  undeniable.  But  in  this  self-conscious- 
ness of  myself,  it  was  further  contended,  I  am  to  myself  an  object, 
and  what  held  true  of  the  previous  subject  holds  true  again  of  the 
subject  to  this  object;  it  becomes  object,  and  needs  a  new  subject, 
and  so  on  ad  infinitum.  In  every  consciousness,  therefore,  subject 
and  object  were  divided  from  each  other,  and  each  was  treated  as 
a  separate  thing :  that  was  the  reason  why  consciousness  fell  out 
for  us  to  be  inconceivable. 

"But,  notwithstanding,  consciousness  exists;  that  contention, 
therefore,  must  be  false.  *  It  is  false*  means  *  its  opposite  is 
true.'  Consequently,  the  following  proposition  is  true  :  there  is 
a  consciousness  in  which  the  subjective  and  objective  elements 
cannot  be  divided,  but  are  absolutely  one  and  the  same. 
Accordingly,  such  a  consciousness  would  be  what  we  needed 
in  order  to  explain  consciousness  in  general.  Without  dwelling 
further  on  the  point,  we  now  return  unembarrassed  to  our 
investigation. 

"  3.  Since,  as  we  requested  you,  you  thought  now  objects  ex- 
ternal to  you,  now  yourself,  you  undoubtedly  knew  that,  and 
what,  and  how  you  thought ;  for  we  were  able  to  converse  on  the 
subject  with  each  other,  as  we  have  done  in  the  foregoing. 

"  Now  how  did  you  come  to  this  consciousness  of  your  think- 
ing? You  will  answer  me:  *I  knew  it  immediately;  the  con- 
sciousness of  my  thinking  is  not  something  contingent,  subsequent, 
additional,  annexed  to  my  thinking  itself,  but  it  is  inseparable 


from  it.'     So  you  will  answer  and  must  answer;  for  you  cannot 
at  all  think  your  thinking  without  a  consciousness  of  it. 

"  At  the  very  outset,  then,  we  might  liave  found  such  a  con- 
sciousness as  we  were  in  search  of  —  a  consciousness  in  which  the 
subjective  and  objective  elements  were  immediately  united.  The 
consciousness  of  our  own  thinking  is  this  consciousness.  Well, 
then,  you  are  immediately  conscious  of  your  thinking :  how  do 
you  conceive  this  ?  Manifestly,  no  otherwise  than  thus  :  your 
inner  activity,  which  goes  to  something  out  of  it,  to  the  object  of 
thought,  goes  at  the  same  time  to  itself  and  into  itself.  But, 
according  to  what  precedes,  through  activity  returning  into  itself 
there  origmates  for  us  the  I.  Accordingly,  in  the  thinking  of 
yourself,  you  were  conscious  of  yourself,  and  just  this  self-con- 
sciousness was  that  immediate  consciousness  of  your  thinking, 
whether  you  thought  an  object  or  merely  yourself.  Therefore, 
self -consciousness  is  immediate  ;  in  it  the  subjective  and  objective 
elements  are  inseparably  united  and  absolutely  one. 

**  Such  an  immediate  consciousness  is  scientifically  expressed  as 
an  Intuition^  and  we,  too,  will  call  it  so.  The  intuition  here  con- 
sidered is  a  positing  of  self  as  positing  something  objective,  which 
may  be  myself  as  mere  object.  But  it  cannot  in  any  way  be  a 
mere  positing ;  for  by  that  we  should  be  involved  in  the  already 
indicated  impossibility  of  explaining  consciousness.  Everything 
depends  for  me  on  being  understood  and  found  convincing  on  this 
point,  which  constitutes  the  foundation  of  my  whole  system. 

"  All  possible  consciousness  as  objective  to  a  subject  presupposes 
an  immediate  consciousness  in  which  the  subjective  and  objective 
elements  are  absolutely  one;  without  this,  consciousness  is  posi- 
tively inconceivable.  We  shall  always  seek  in  vain  for  a  bond 
between  subject  and  object,  unless  we  have  originally  apprehended 
them  both  in  their  union.  All  philosophy,  therefore,  which  fails 
to  start  from  the  point  in  which  they  are  united,  is  necessarily 
shallow  and  incomplete,  and  is,  therefore,  no  philosophy. 

"This  immediate  consciousness  is  the  intnition  of  the  I,  just 
described;  in  it,  the  I  necessarily  posits  itself,  and  is  for  that 
reason  the  subjective  and  objective  elements  in  one.  Every  other 
consciousness  is  attached  to  this  and  mediated  by  it,  —  becomes  a 
consciousness  merely  through  combination  with  it;  this  alone 
is  mediated  or  conditioned  by  nothing;  it  is  absolutely  possible 
and  simply  necessary,  if  any  other  consciousness  is  to  take  place. 
The  I  is  not  to  be  considered  as  bare  subject,  which  it  has  been 


230 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  rillLOSOPHY 


considered  almost  universally  down  to  the  present  time,  ^  but  as 
subject-object  in  the  sense  explained. 

"  Now  here  there  is  question  of  no  other  *  being  *  of  the  I  than 
that  in  the  self-intuition  described,  —  or,  more  strictly  expressed, 
than  the  *  being'  of  this  intuition  itself.     I  am  this  intuition,  and 
absolutely  nothing  more;  and  this  intuition  itself  is  I.    By  this 
self-positing  there  is  not  produced  an  existence  of  the  I  as  a  thing- 
in-itself  which  subsists  independently  of  consciousness,  —  a  conten- 
tion which  would  be,  without  doubt,  the  gieatest  of  absurdities. 
Just  as  little  does  this  intuition  presuppose  an  existence,  independ- 
ent of  consciousness,  of  the  I  as  (intuiting)  thing  :  which  in  my 
judgment  is  no  less  an  absurdity,  although,  of  course,  one  must 
not  say  this,  since  the  most  celebrated  world-sages  of  our  philo- 
sophical century  have  adhered  to  this  opinion.     Such  an  existence 
is  not  to  be  presupposed,  I  say ;  for,  if  you  can  speak  of  nothing 
of  which  you  are  not  conscious,  but  everything  of  which  you  are  con- 
scious 15  conditioned  by  the  self-consciousness  pointed  out,  you  cannot,  on 
the  contrary,  make  a  determined  something  of  which  you  are  conscious, 
that  existence  of  the  I  which  is  said  to  be  independent  of  all  in- 
tuiting and  thinking,  condition  that  self  consciousness.     Either  you 
would  have  to  confess  that  you  speak  of  something  without  know- 
ing about  it,  which  you  will  hardly  do,  or  you  would  have  to  deny 
that  the  self -consciousness  pointed  out  conditions  every  other  con- 
sciousness, which  will  be  absolutely  impossible  for  you,  if  you 
have  only  understood  me.     From  what  lias  been  said,  it  is  evident, 
moreover,  that,  in  virtue  of  our  first  proposition,  not  only  for  the 
case  instanced  but  for  all  possible  cases,  we  are  inevitably  com- 
mitted to  the  standpoint  of  transcendental  idealism;  and  that  it 
is  one  and  the  same  thing  to  understand  that  proposition  and  to 
be  convinced  of  this  standpoint. 

**  Consequently,  the  intelligence  intuites  itself  simply  as  intelli- 
gence, or  as  pure  intelligence,  and  precisely  in  this  self-intuition 
its  essence  consists.  Hence  this  intuition,  in  case  there  should 
possibly  be  still  another  mode  of  intuition,  is  called  intellectual  in- 
tuition in  distinction  from  the  latter.  Instead  of  the  word  *  intel- 
ligence,' I  prefer  the  designation  *  I-hood  *  [Ichheit],  because  this 
most  directly  expresses,  for  every  one  who  is  capable  of  the  least 
attention,  the  return  of  activity  into  itself.*** 

1  Fichte  has  in  mind  here  Kant's  description  of  the  I  as  "  nichts  weiter, 
als  ein  transscendentales  Subject  der  Gedanken  =  a?."  (Werke,  III.  276.) 

2  Versuch  einer  neuen  Darstellung  der  Wissenschaftslehre,  Werke,  I. 
525-530. 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  FICHTE 


231 


§  108.  Considered  simply  as  a  criticism  of  Kant,  Fichte's 
reasoning  admits  of  no  reply.  Kant's  "  division  "  or  "  sep- 
aration "  of  the  I-object  from  the  I-subject  in  self-conscious- 
ness, to  which  Fichte  is  evidently  alluding,  involves,  as  the 
latter  clearly  proves,  the  impossibility  of  thinking  any 
self-conscious  subject  whatever.  That  is,  if  in  a  given  self- 
consciousness  or  "  real  unity  of  apperception "  the  object 
can  be  indeed  "divided  "  or  "separated  "  from  the  subject, 
the  "division"  instantly  abolishes  the  self-consciousness; 
the  object  (0)  immediately  absorbs  the  subject  (S),  and  be- 
comes a  new  object  (0  -f  S)  which  of  course  demands  a  new 
subject  (S') ;  this  new  subject  is  immediately  absorbed  by 
the  new  object  (0  -f  S)  to  constitute  still  another  object 
(0  -f  S  -f  S'),  which  in  turn  demands  still  another  subject 
(S") ;  and  this  process  must  repeat  itself  endlessly,  without 
the  possibility  of  ever  arriving  at  any  real  self-conscious 
subject  at  all.     Shortly :  — 

Immediate  consciousness  =  O  -f-  S. 
First  self-consciousness  =  (O  -I-  S)  +  S'  =  O'  -f  S'. 
Second  self-consciousness  =  (O'  +  S')  +  S"  =  O"  -j-  S". 
Third  self -consciousness  =  (O"  -f  S")  -f-  S'"  =  O'"  +  S'"  etc. 

This  Kantian  method  of  separating  the  object  and  the 
subject  in  self-consciousness,  therefore,  as  Fichte  above 
makes  clear,  annihilates  the  possibility  of  self-conscious- 
ness itself  by  annihilating  its  necessary  condition,  namely, 
a  self-conscious  subject.  The  "separated"  or  pure  subject 
(reines  Ich)  vanishes  in  the  unattainable  limit  of  an  infinite 
series ;  and  Kant's  pure  consciousness-in-general  (Bewusst- 
sein  iiberhaupt),  which  absolutely  requires  a  pure  subject, 
vanishes  with  it.  But  this,  both  to  Kant  and  to  Fichte, 
would  be  the  end  of  all  philosophy.  The  "  division  "  or  "  sep- 
aration," then,  as  Fichte  unanswerably  urged,  must  be  itself 
impossible;  in  all  self-consciousness  subject  and  object 
must  be,  not  separated,  but  distinguished;  self -conscious- 
ness as  such  must  be  a  consciousness  in  which  subject  and 
object  are  one  and  indivisible,  that  is,  identical  in  difference 


r 


232 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  FICHTE 


233 


as  Subject' Object.  It  is  Fichte's  supreme  merit  to  have  seen 
and  demonstrated  this  commanding  truth ;  for  Kant  himself 
failed  to  see  that  it  was  the  necessary  logical  implication  of 
his  own  confession  that  "  the  absolute  unity  of  appercep- 
tion, the  simple  I,  in  the  representation  [i.  e.  <  I  think ']  to 
which  all  the  combination  or  separation  that  constitutes 
thinking  is  related,  is  important  for  itself,  too,  although  I 
have  discovered  nothing  as  to  the  subject's  constitution  or 
substantiality,"  —  that  "apperception  is  something  real, 
and  its  unity  lies  already  in  its  possibility."  *  Fichte  has 
proved  that  Kant's  "  division  "  or  "  separation  "  of  I-subject 
and  I-object  in  self-consciousness  would  annihilate  all  possi- 
bility of  this  "  real  unity  of  apperception,"  and  thus  render 
impossible  "  the  highest  principle  in  all  human  knowledge ; " 
and  it  is  Fichte's  greatest  achievement  in  philosophy  to 
have  established,  in  opposition  to  Kant's  notion  of  the  I  as 
"  mere  logical  subject,"  his  own  notion  of  it  as  indissoluble 
"subject-object."  * 

§  109.  But  how  did  he  proceed  to  develop  this  notion  ? 
Only  two  lines  of  development  lay  logically  open  before 
him.  One  is  determined  by  the  Aristotelian  Paradox  (§  78, 
VI),  which  excludes  the  individual  difference  of  each  I, 
isolates  the  common  essence  of  all  I's  as  bare  "subject- 
object,"  and  leads  to  the  abstract  universal  as  the  Ichheity 
the  "I-hood"  or  Pure  I  (§  71,  Table  III,  Rationalist  Form 
of  the  Irrational  Antithesis).  The  other  is  determined  by 
the  Law  of  Unit-Universals  (§  99),  which  includes  the  indi- 
vidual difference  with  the  common  essence  in  each  Real  I, 
and  leads  to  the  concrete  universal  as  the  Real  We  (§  71, 
Table  III,  Rational  Antithesis).  Fichte  followed  the  for- 
mer line,  as  his  whole  doctrine  shows.     For  instance : 

1  Kr.  d.  r.  Vern.,  Werke,  III.  285. 

2  "  Das  Ich  ist  nicht  zu  betrachten,  als  blosses  Subject,  wie  man  es  bis 
jetzt  beinahe  durchgangig  betrachtet  hat,  sondem  als  Subject-Object  in 
dem  augegebenen  Sinne. "  (Werke,  I.  529. )  — ;♦ '  Die  in  sich  zunickgehende 
Thatigkeit  als  feststehend  und  beharrlich  aufgefasst,  wodurch  sonach 
beides,  Ich,  als  Thatiges,  und  Ich,  als  Object  meiner  Thatigkeit,  zusammen- 
fallen,  ist  der  Begriff  des  Ich."    (Ibid,  I.  533.) 


'il 


m 


Kant  had  said :  "  This  representation  [namely,  the  uni- 
versal a  think']  is  an  act  of  spontaneity;  that  is,  it 
cannot  be  considered  as  belonging  to  the  sensibility.  I  call 
it  the  pure  apperception,  in  order  to  distinguish  it  from  the 
empirical ;  or,  also,  the  original  apperception,  because  it  is 
that  self-consciousness  which,  in  producing  the  representa- 
tion *I  think'  that  must  be  capable  of  accompanying  all 
other  representations  and  is  in  every  consciousness  one  and 
the  same,  can  be  accompanied  by  no  representation  beyond 
itself."  * 

Now  Fichte  quoted  this  passage  approvingly,  because  he 
interpreted  it  as  expressing  his  own  concept  of  the  Pure  I. 
He  particularly  emphasized  by  italics  the  words  —  "  *s  in 
every  consciousness  one  and  the  same^^  and  added :  "  Here 
the  nature  of  the  pure  self-consciousness  is  clearly  de- 
scribed. It  is  in  every  consciousness  the  same  —  unde- 
terminable, therefore,  by  any  accident  of  the  consciousness : 
the  I  in  it  is  determined  solely  by  itself,  and  is  absolutely 
determined."  ^  What  does  this  mean  ?  Those  words  itali- 
cized by  Fichte  are  the  hall-mark  of  the  Aristotelian  Para- 
dox. They  do  but  translate,  as  applied  to  this  instance, 
Aristotle's  to  ctSo?  to  cVoV  —  the  pure  "  form  "  in  the  "  com- 
pound of  form  and  matter,"  the  universal  which  inheres  in 
the  individual  and  thereby  gives  to  the  latter  all  its  reality 
and  all  its  intelligibility.  Fichte's  "  I  in  it,"  das  Ich  in  ihm, 
is  simply  the  ttSos  to  lv6v  of  consciousness,  the  Pure  I  im- 
manent as  universal  self-consciousness  in  every  conscious 
state  of  every  empirical  individual,  absolutely  identical  and 
unchangeable  in  all  individuals  as  pure  "  subject-object." 
In  no  possible  way  could  Fichte  have  disclosed  his  adhesion 
to  the  Aristotelian  Paradox  with  greater  clearness  than  in 
this  emphatic  approval  of  Kant's  adhesion  to  it,  or  indi- 
cated more  unmistakably  what  theory  of  the  general  rela- 
tion of  the  universal  to  the  individual  determined  and  went 
to  the  making  of  his  whole  theory  of  the  I. 


1  Kant,  Werke,  III.  116. 


2  Fichte,  Werke,  I.  476. 


234 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


Rationally  to  conceive,  in  its  entirety,  necessity,  and  uni- 
versality, "  the  absolutely  unconditioned  and  characteristic 
element  of  self-consciousness,"  to  the  complete  exclusion  of 
every  empirical  element,  and  thereby  to  know  the  absolute 
essence  of  the  I  as  "subject-object,"  was  Fichte's  aim.  This 
knowledge  was  the  Wissenschaftslehre^  the  all-exhaustive 
science  of  the  Ichheit,  beyond  which  nothing  exists.^  Yet, 
in  order  by  the  method  thus  adopted  to  win  knowledge  of 
the  I  as  "subject-object,"  Fichte  fell  into  the  very  error 
which  he  exposed  in  Kant.  Precisely  as  Kant,  according 
to  Fichte,  destroyed  self-consciousness  by  "  separating  "  the 
I-object  and  the  I-subject,  Fichte  himself  destroyed  knowl- 
edge by  "separating"  reason  and  experience.*  In  both 
cases,  "separation"  or  "division"  renders  insoluble  a  prob- 

1  "  AUes  was  ist,  ist  uur  insofern,  ala  es  im  Ich  gesetzt  ist,  und  ausser  dem 
Ich  ist  uichts."  (Werke,  I.  99.)  —  "Ich  bediene  uiich  statt  des  Wortea 
Intelligenz  lieber  der  Benennung :  Ichheit ;  well  diese  das  Zuriickgehen 
der  Thatigkeit  in  sich  selbst  fiir  jedeu,  der  nur  der  geringsten  Aufinerk- 
samkeit  fahig  ist,  am  unmittu Ibarsten  bezeichnet."  {Ibid.  I.  630.)  —  *♦  Die 
Ichheit  ist  es  [d.  h.  das  absolut  Unbedingte  und  Characteristische  des 
Selbstbewusstseins],  die  Subject- Objectivi tat,  und  sonst  durchaus  nichts  ; 
das  Setzen  des  Subjectiven  und  seines  Objectiven,  des  Bewusstseins  und 
seines  Bewussten,  als  Eins ;  und  schlechthin  nichts  weiter,  ausser  dieser 
Identitat."  {Ibid.  IL  362.)  — "Die  Wissenschaftslehre  soil  aber  nicht 
nur  sich  selbst,  sondem  auch  alien  imglichen  iibrigen  Wissenschaften  ihre 
Form  geben,  und  die  Giiltigkeit  dieser  Form  fiir  alle  sicher  stellen." 
{Ibid.  I.  51.) 

*  "Nun  hat  die  Philosophie  denGrund  aller  Erfahrung  anzngeben  ;  ihr 
Object  liegt  sonach  nothwendigaitsser  aller  Erfahrung.  Dieser  Satz  gilt  fiir 
alle  Philosophie,  und  hat  auch,  bis  auf  die  Epoche  der  Kantianer  und  ihrer 
Thatsachen  des  Bewusstseyns,  und  also  der  inneren  Erfahrung,  wirklich 
allgemein  gegolten."  {Ibid.  I.  425.)  —  "Der  Grund  liegt  alleraal  ausser- 
halb  des  begriindeten,  d.  i.  er  ist  demselben  entegegengesetzt."  {Ibid.  I. 
456.)  Compare  Kant's  own  words:  "Der  Verstand  vermag  nichts  an- 
zuschauen  und  die  Sinne  nichts  zu  denken.  Nur  daraus,  dass  sie  sich 
vereinigen,  kann  Erkenntniss  entspringen.  Deswegen  darf  man  aber  doch 
nicht  ihreu  Antheil  vermischen,  sondem  man  hat  grosse  Ursache,  jedes 
von  dem  andern  sorgfaltig  abzusondem  und  zu  unterscheiden."  (Kr. 
d.  r.  Vem.  Werke,  III.  82.)  To  separate  and  distinguish  —  not  to  dis- 
tinguish without  separating :  that  is  the  concept-philosophy's  principle. 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  FICHTE 


236 


lem  which  can  be  solved  only  hy  distinction  tvithin  the 
inseparable  or  indivisible,  —  by  the  equal  recognition  of 
difference  and  identity  in  one  and  the  same  reality.  But 
it  is  necessary  to  take  note  of  Fichte*s  resultant  concept 
of  the  Ichheit,  and  to  inquire  whether  by  means  of  it  a 
rational  transition  can  be  effected  from  the  I  to  the  We. 
§  110.  The  Pure  I,  as  "subject-object,"  is  variously,  but 
in  the  main  self-consistently,  characterized  by  Fichte.  It 
is  a  free  self-activity  {Selhstthatigkeit)  which  returns  into 
itself.^  It  is  a  self-realizing  energy,  a  union  of  power  and 
product,  a  "deed-act"  which  appears  in  no  empirical  con- 
sciousness, but  underlies  and  conditions  every  empirical 
consciousness,  and  which  absolutely  posits,  originates,  and 
constructs  its  own  being.^     It  is  an  unconditioned  free- 

1  "  Er  [d.  h.  jeder]  wird  hoffentlich  einsehon  .  .  .  dass,  sago  ich,  der 
Gedanke  seiner  selbst  nichts  anderes  sey,  als  der  Gedanke  dieser  Hand- 
lung,  und  das  Wort  Ich  nichts  anderes,  als  die  Bezeichnung  desselben ; 
dass  Ich  und  in  sich  zuruckkehrcndcs  Haiideln  voUig  indeutische  BegrifFe 
siud."  (Werke,  I.  462.)  — "Nun  aber  ist  das  Ich  laut  obigem  nichts 
anderes,  als  ein  in  sich  selbst  zuriickgehendes  Handcln  ;  und  ein  in  sich 
selbst  zuriickgehendes  Handeln  ist  das  Ich."     {Ibid.  I.  532.) 

2  "Er  [d.  h.  der  absolut-erste,  schlechthin  unbedingte  Grundsatz  alles 
menschlicheii  Wissens]  soil  diejenige  That/tandlung  ausdrucken,  welcho 
unter  den  empirischeu  Bestinnnungeu  unseres  Bewusstseyns  nicht  vor- 
kommt,  noch  vorkonimen  kann,  sondem  vielmehr  allem  Bewusstseyn  zum 
Grunde  liegt,  und  allein  cs  mbglich  niacht."    {Ibid.  I.  91.)  —  "Also  das 
Setzen  des  Ich  durch  sich  selbst  ist  die  reine  Thatigkeit  desselben.  —  Das 
Ich  setzt  sich  selbst,  und  es  ist,  vermoge  dieses  blossen  Setzens  durch  sich 
selbst ;  und  umgekehrt :  das  Ich  ist,  und  es  setzt  sein  Seyn,  vermoge  seines 
blossen  Seyns.    Es  ist  zugleich  das  Handelnde,  und  das  Product  der  Hand- 
lung  ;  das  Thatige,  und  das,  was  durch  die  Thatigkeit  hervorgebracht  wird  ; 
Handlung  und  That  sind  Eins  und  dasselbe ;  und  daher  ist  das :  Ich  bin, 
Ausdruck  einer  Thathandlung ;  aber  auch  der  einzig-moglichen."    {Ibid. 
I.  96.)  —  ''Das  Ich  ist  urspriinglich  nur  ein  Thun  ;  denkt  man  es  auch 
nur  als  Thatiges,   so  hat  man  schon  einen  empirischen,   und  also  erst 
abzuleitenden  Begriff  desselben."   {Ibid.  I.  495.)  —  ''Sich  selbst  setzen  und 
Seyn  sind,  vom  Ich  gebraucht,  voUig  gleich.  .  .  .  Denkt  man  sich  die 
Erzahlungvon  dieser  Thathandlung  an  die  Spitze  einer  Wissenschaftslehre, 
so  miisste  sie  etwa  folgendermassen  ausgedriickt  werden ;   Bos  Ich  setzt 
urspriinglich  schlechthin  sein  eigenes  Seyn."    {Ibid.  I.  98.)  —  ** Erst  durch 


236 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPIiY 


agency,  which  is  the  I's  substance  and  innermost  essence.^ 
It  is  a  shut  but  self-seeing  eye,  which  produces  itself  out 
of  nothing. 2  It  is  an  intellectual  intuition,  without  which 
the  concept  and  the  sensuous  intuition  together  would  not 
be  enough  to  constitute  a  mental  representation  or  definite 
state  of  consciousness  (^Vorstellung)}     It  is  an  absolute, 

diesen  Act,  und  lediglich  durch  ihn,  durch  ein  Handeln  auf  ein  Haudeln 
selbst,  welchem  bestimmten  Handeln  kein  Handeln  iiberhaupt  vorhergeht, 
wird  das  Ich  urspriinglich  fiir  sich  selbst."  (Ibid.  I.  459.)  This  denies 
heredity  —  denies  that  act  of  the  We  which,  as  generation,  conditions 
every  act  of  the  I,  even  the  Thathandlung. 

1  '*Die  letztere  [d.  h.  die  absolute  Kraft  des  Ich]  ist  Substanz  des  Ich, 
sein  eigenstes  innerstes  Wesen,  in  welchem  das  Wissen  ewig  ruht :  die 
Aeusserung  [d.  h.  das  Gefiihl]  ist  Accidens,  aber  nur  formaliter ;  seyn 
konnend  iiberhaupt,  oder  auch  nicht ;  wenn  sie  aber  ist,  durchaus  nothwen- 
dig  diejenige  seyend,  welcho  sie  ist,  denn  sie  ist  bestinimt  durch  dus  uu- 
veranderliche  Verhaltniss  zum  Universum."    {Ibid.  II.  124.) 

5*  *•  Das  Wissen  ist  nun  gefunden  und  steht  vor  uus,  als  ein  auf  sich 
selbst  ruhendes  und  geschlossenes  Auge.  Es  sicht  nichts  ausser  sich, 
aber  es  sieht  sich  selbst.  Diese  Selbstanschauung  dcsselben  haben  wir  zu 
erschopfen,  und  mit  ihr  ist  das  System  alles  moglicheu  Wisseus  ei-schiipft, 
und  die  Wissenschaftslehre  realisirt  und  geschlossen.  .  .  .  Die  iutellec- 
tuelle  Anschauung  ist  fiir  sich  ein  absolutes  Selbsterzeugen,  durchaus  aus 
Nichts.  .  .  .  Alle  Anschauung  aber  ist  Freiheit,  isi  daher  schlechthiu, 
weil  sie  ist :  absolutes  Selbsterzeugen  aus  Nichts."     {Ibid.  II.  38,  39.) 

•  "Die  Wissenschaftslehre  geht,  wie  wir  soeben  gesehcn  haben,  aus 
von  einer  intellectuellen  Anschauung,  der  absoluten  Selbstthatigkcit  des 
Ich."  {Ibid.  I.  471.)  —  "  Ich  bin  diese  Anschauung  und  schlechthin  nichts 
weiter,  und  diese  Anschauung  selbst  ist  Ich."  {Ibid,  I.  629.) —  "  Diese 
intellectuelle  Anschauung  ist  der  einzigo  feste  Standpunct  fur  alle  Philoso- 
phic." {Ibid.  I.  466.)—  "  Nach  Kant,  nach  Schulz,  nach  mir,  gehort  zu 
einer  voUstandigen  Vorstellung  dreierlei :  das,  wodurch  die  Vorstellung 
sich  auf  ein  Object  bezieht,  und  die  Vorstellung  von  Etwas  wird,  und 
welches  wir  einstimmig  die  sinnliche  Anschauung  nennen  (auch  wenn  ich 
selbst  das  Object  der  Vorstellung  bin,  ist  es  so  ;  ich  werde  mir  selbst  ein 
Beharrliches  in  der  Zeit)  ;  das,  wodurch  sie  sich  auf  das  Subject  bezieht, 
und  meine  Vorstellung  wird,  und  welches  bei  Kant  und  Schulz  nicht  An- 
schauung heissen  soil,  von  mir  aber,  weil  es  zur  voUstandigen  Vorstellung 
in  deniselben  Verhaltnisse  steht,  als  die  sinnliche  Anschauung,  so  genannt 
wird ;  und  endlich  das,  wodurch  beides  vereinigt,  und  nur  in  dieser  Ver- 
einigung  Vorstellung  wird,  welches  wir  abermals  einstimmig  den  Begriff 
nennen.'*    {Ibid.  I.  474.)  —  "Nun  aber  kommt  diese  Anschauung  nie 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  FICIITE 


237 


illimitable  subject,  which  originates  or  produces  uncon- 
sciously within  itself  both  terms  of  the  conscious  antithe- 
sis of  (empirical)  I  and  (empirical)  Not-I  —  both  terms 
being  mere  "  accidents  "  in  the  unconscious  I  as  "  divisible 
substance."^  It  is  an  absolute  I-in-itself,  which  never- 
theless is  not  a  thing-in-itself,  because  it  is  not  an  ob- 
ject of  experience,  but  is  above  all  experience  in  virtue  of 
its  own  free  self-determination.^    This   I-in-itself  is  for 


allein,  als  ein  vollstandiger  Act  des  Bewusstseyns,  vor;  wie  denn  auch  die 
sinnliche  Anschauung  nicht  allein  vorkommt,  noch  das  Bewusstseyn  vol- 
Icndet,  sondem  beide  miissen  begriffen  werden.  Nicht  aber  allein  dies, 
sondcrn  die  intellectuelle  Anschauung  ist  auch  stets  mit  einer  sinnlichen 
verkniipft."     {Ibid.  I.  463-464.     So,  also,  II.  41.) 

1"  Das  Ich  sowohl,  als  dasNicht-Ich  sind  beides  Producte  ursprtinglicher 
Handlungen  des  Ich,  und  das  Bewusstseyn  selbst  ist  ein  solches  Product 
der  ersten  urspriinglichen  Handlung  des  Ich,  des  Setzens  des  Ich  durch 
sich  selbst."  {Ibid.  I.  107).  —  *'  Die  Masse  dessen,  was  unbedingt  und 
schlechthin  gewiss  ist,  ist  nunmehr  crschopft ;  und  ich  wiirde  sie  etwa  in 
folgender  Formel  ausdriicken :  Ich  seize  im  Ich  dcm  tlieilharen  Ich  ein  tlicil- 
bares  Nlcht-Ich  cntgegen.  Ueber  diese  Erkenntniss  hinaus  geht  keine 
Philosophic  ;  aber  bis  zu  ihr  zuriickgehen  soil  jede  griindliche  Philosophic  ; 
und  so  wie  sie  es  thut,  wird  sie  Wissenschaftslehre.  Alles  was  von  nun  an 
im  Systeme  des  menschlichen  Geistes  vorkommen  soil,  muss  sich  aus  dem 
Aufgestellten  ableiten  lassen."  {Ibid.  I.  110.) — "Ich  und  Nicht-Ich, 
sowie  sie  durch  den  Begriff  der  gegenseitigen  Einschrankbarkeit  gleich-  und 
entgegengesetzt  werden,  sind  selbst  beide  etwas  (Accidenzen)  im  Ich,  als 
thcilbarer  Substanz  ;  gesetzt  durch  das  Ich,  als  absolutes  unbeschrankbares 
Subject,  dem  nichts  gleich  ist,  und  nichts  entgegengesetzt  ist."  {Ibid.  I. 
119.)  —  *\Femer  ist  klar,  dass  das  Ich  seiner  Thatigkeit  in  dieser  Produc- 
tion des  angeschauten,  als  eines  solchen,  sich  nicht  bewusst  seyn  kcinnc, 
darum,  weil  sie  nicht  rellectirt,  dem  Ich  nicht  zugcschriel>en  wird.  (Nur 
in  der  philosophischen  Reflexion,  die  wir  jetzt  anstellen,  und  die  wir  immer 
soi^faltig  von  der  gemeinen  nothwendigen  zu  unterscheiden  haben,  wird 
sie  dem  Ich  beigemessen.) "  {Ibid.  I.  230.)  But  —  **  Das  Ich  ist  nur  inso- 
fem,  inwiefem  es  sich  seiner  bewusst  ist."  {Ibid.  I.  97.)  How  reconcile 
these  two  positions  ? 

*  **  Nun  ist  gerade  dieses  Ich  an  sich  das  Object  des  Idealismus.  Das 
Object  dieses  Systems  kommt  noch  als  etwas  reales  wirklich  im  Bewusstseyn 
vor,  nicht  als  ein  Ding  an  sich,  wodurch  der  Idealismus  aufhoren  wiirde  zu 
seyn,  was  er  ist,  und  in  Dogmatismus  sich  verwandeln  wiirde,  aber  als  Ich 
an  sich,  nicht  als  Gegenstand  der  Erfahrung  (denn  es  ist  nicht  bestimmt. 


238 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


itself  alone,^  an  Anundfarsichsej/n,  a  universal  self-conscious- 
ness which,  excluding  every  element  of  human  experience 
and  every  ground  of  human  individuality,  includes  nothing 
but  the  colorless  and  characterless  self-identity  of  a  merely 
potential  Subject-Object,  a  Pure  Universal  I  which  holds  in 
itself,  as  such,  no  possibility  of  Empirical  Individual  Fs, 
If  these  are  known  to  exist,  the  ground  of  the  knowledge 
of  their  existence  must  lie,  not  in  reason,  but  in  experi- 
ence ;  and  knowledge  of  it  must  have  the  form,  not  of  a 
pure  concept,  but  of  the  percept-concept. 

§  111.  For,  precisely  as  Aristotle's  "  first  philosophy " 
was  found,  in  §§  76-78,  to  contain  no  principle  of  indi- 
viduation in  general  and  his  psychology  no  principle  of 
personal  identity,  so  Fichte's  philosophy  of  the  I,  his  Wis- 
senschafislehre,  which  from  beginning  to  end  is  completely 
dominated  by  the  Aristotelian  Paradox,  is  found  to  contain 
no  principle  of  individuality.  Constructed  in  accordance 
with  that  theory  of  universals,  which  suppresses  the  indi- 
vidual difference  as  unknowable,  how  could  his  philosophy 
find  room  anywhere  for  the  real  individual  as  such  ?  The 
only  I  which  it  recognizes  must  be,  of  course,  divested  of 
individuality ;  and  so  we  find  it.  Just  as  Aristotle  opposed 
the  pure,  impersonal,  and  imperishable  intelligence,  or  vov^, 
to  the  perishing  empirical  individual,  or  6  rU  avOpumcx:^  — 
just  as  Kant  opposed  them  as  das  Bewusstsein  uherhaupt 
and  der  mit  Vemunft  hegahte  Sinnenmenschy  —  so  Fichte 
opposed  them  as  Ichheit  and  Individualitdty  das  Ich  and  das 

sondern  es  wird  lediglich  durch  mich  bestimmt,  und  ist  ohne  diese  Be- 
stimmung  nichts,  und  ist  iiberhaupt  ohne  sie  nicht),  sondern  als  etwas  uber 
alle  Erfahrung  erhabeues.  Das  Object  des  Dogmatismus  im  Gegentheil 
gehort  zu  den  Objecten  derersten  Klasse,  die  lediglich  durch  freies  Denken 
hervorgebracht  werden  ;  das  Ding  an  sich  ist  eine  blosse  Erdichtung,  und 
hat  gar  keine  Realitat."  (lUd.  L  427-428.)  Of  course,  this  distinction  is 
futile.  The  "thing"  is  simply  a  *' something,"  a  unit  of  existence,  an 
Etwas  as  opposed  to  Nichts  ;  and,  if  the  Ich  is  Etwas^  and  not  Nichts,  the 
Ich  an  sich  is  of  necessity  a  Ding  an  sich.     See  above,  §§  67,  68,  98. 

*  "Ich  Kn  nur  filr  Mich:  aber  fur  Mich  bin  ich  Twthtoendig,"    {Ibid, 
I.  98.) 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  FICHTE 


239 


Individuum,  In  each  case  the  reason  was  one  and  the 
same,  namely,  the  Aristotelian  Paradox.  How  could  it  be 
otherwise  with  a  theory  which  shuts  its  eyes  to  the  end- 
lessly rich  and  scientifically  knowable  variety  exhibited  by 
the  individual  specimens  of  a  given  species,  treats  them  all 
as  mere  o/xoia  or  d8ta<^opa,  and  in  the  species  itself  can  dis- 
cern no  other  intelligible  reality  than  the  immutable  com- 
mon essence,  which,  if  divorced  from  all  the  individual 
differences  of  all  the  specimens,  has  no  possible  existence 
save  as  an  empty  abstraction,  a  definition  that  defines  noth- 
ing real,  a  mere  ens  rationis?  But  Fichte's  adoption  or 
unconscious  inheritance  of  this  theory,  with  its  consequent 
complete  exclusion  of  individuality  from  his  notion  of  the 
I,  does  not  admit  of  doubt. 

At  the  close  of  his  philosophical  lectures,  in  1794,  Fichte 
thus  concluded  a  farewell  address  to  his  students  (the  italics 
are  his  own)  :  — 

"  Earth,  and  heaven,  and  time,  and  space,  vanish  for  me  in  this 
thought ;  and  should  not  the  individual  vanish  for  me  ?  I  lead  you 
not  back  to  that  I  All  individuals  are  included  in  the  one  great  unity 
of  the  pure  spirit.  Let  that  be  the  last  word  which  I  commend  to 
your  remembrance,  and  with  which  I  take  my  leave."  ^ 

Again,  speaking  confidentially  to  his  reader,  he  says: 

**  Perhaps  thou  mightest  have  introduced  into  the  concept  of  the 
I  sundry  things  which  I  had  not  introduced  into  it ;  for  example, 
the  concept  of  thy  own  individuality,  because  this,  too,  is  denoted 
by  that  verbal  symbol.  All  this  now  is  dropped;  only  that  which 
comes  to  pass  by  the  mere  return  of  thy  thinking  upon  thyself  is 
the  I  of  which  I  here  speak."  2 

§  112.  Still  more  significant  are  the  passages  in  which 
he  puts  his  exclusion  of  individuality  from  the  notion  of 
the  Pure  I  into  scientific  form.     For  instance  : 

**  The  sum  of  that  which  is  unconditionally  and  absolutely  cer- 
tain is  now  exhausted,  and  I  would  express  it  in  the  following 

1  Werke,  I.  416.  2  Werke,  I.  523. 


240 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


formula :  Within  the  /,  /  oppose  to  the  divisible  la  divisible  not-I.  No 
philosophy  travels  beyond  this  truth  ;  but  every  well-grounded 
philosophy  must  recur  to  it,  and,  in  proportion  as  it  does  this, 
becomes  Wissenschqfislehre.  Whatever  truth  is  hereafter  to  appear 
in  the  system  of  the  human  spirit  must  be  deducible  from  that 
formula. "  ^ 

But  thus  — 

"  the  I  itself  is  degraded  to  a  lower  concept,  that  of  divisibility,  in 
order  that  it  may  be  equated  with  the  Not-I,  to  which,  in  the  same 
concept,  it  is  likewise  opposed.  Here,  therefore,  there  is  no  ascent^ 
as  in  every  other  synthesis,  but  a  descent.  Both  the  I  and  the  Not- 
I,  as  they  are  thus  equated  and  opposed  through  the  concept  of 
reciprocal  limitability,  are  themselves  something  (accidents)  in  the 
I  as  divisible  substance  —  posited  by  the  I  as  absolute  and  illimit- 
able subject,  to  which  nothing  is  equal  and  nothing  opposed.  All 
judgments,  therefore,  whose  logical  subject  is  the  limitable  or  deter- 
minable I,  or  anything  which  determines  the  I,  must  be  limited  or 
determined  by  something  higher.  All  judgments,  however,  whose 
logical  subject  is  the  absolutely  undeterminable  I  can  be  determined 
by  nothing  higher,  because  the  absolute  I  is  determined  by  nothing 
higher ;  but  they  are  unconditionally  grounded  and  determined  by 
themselves."^ 

The  meaning  and  intent  of  this  somewhat  bunglingly 
expressed  distinction  are  on  the  whole  sufficiently  plain. 
Fichte  is  laboring  to  define  to  'himself  in  scientific  clearness 
the  relation  of  the  reines  Ich  to  das  Individuuiriy  in  such  a 
way  as  shall  meet  the  requirements  of  the  Aristotelian 
logic,  whose  well-known  rule  of  definition  by  genus  and 
specific  difference  he  has  just  been  expounding  with  ap- 
proval. This  individual  I:  how  close  the  truth  lay  to 
Fichte's  hand,  could  he  but  have  grasped  it  !  But  he 
missed  it.  His  unconscious  fidelity  to  the  Aristotelian 
Paradox  made  him  as  unable  to  grasp  it  as  Aristotle  was 
before  him.  Out  of  "  This  Individual  I  "  he  was  bound  to 
reject  "  This  Individual,"  and  to  keep  the  pure  "  I "  as  its 
sole   reality.     To  Fichte,   the  rei7ies  Ich  is   rational,  uni- 


1  Werke,  I.  110. 


a  Werke,  I.  119. 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  FICHTE 


241 


versal,   necessary,    absolute,    undeterminable,   impersonal, 
imperishable,  —  in  effect,  vov^ ;    while  das  Individuum  is 
empirical,   individual,    accidental,   relative,    determinable, 
personal,  perishable, —in  effect,  6  tU  avOpioiroq,    Within 
itself  as  "  divisible  substance,"  the  Pure  I,  being  the  sum- 
mum  genus  as  the  Ich  an  sich  or  original  "  self-returning 
activity,"  posits  the  antithesis  of  I  and  Not-I,  —  that  is,  the 
"  divisible  I,"  as  empirical  individuals,  and  the  "  divisible 
Not-I,"  as  the  world  of  phaenomenal  existence.     But,  for 
Fichte,  these  two  cannot  be  subordinate  species  of  a  generic 
Pure  I,    since  that   relationship   would  give  them  equal 
validity  as   "things  in  themselves,"  and  thereby  involve 
surrender  to  that  "  dogmatic  philosophy,"  which  to  Fichte, 
as  follower  of  the   "critical  philosophy,"  was   altogether 
intolerable.     Hence,  this  empirical  I  and  this  equally  em- 
pirical Not-I,  he  concludes,  must  both  stand  to  the  Pure  I 
in  the  relation  of  mere  "  accidents  "  (Fichte's  Accidenzen  is 
the  translation  of  Aristotle's  ra  crvfi/Si/SrjKOTa)  —  mere  eva- 
nescent phaenomena,  non-essential  to  the  Pure  I,  unreal, 
perishable.     The  individual  as  such,  truly,  must  "vanish 
for  him  ;  "  yet  not  without  great  violence  to  logic. 

§  113.  For,  if  we  inquire  by  what  logical  right  he 
admits  the  "concept  of  divisibility,"  not  to  mention  that 
of  "  divisible  substance,"  into  his  concept  of  the  Pure  I  as 
nothing  whatever  but  "  self-returning  activity,"  we  inquire 
in  vain.  "The  concept  of  a  thinking  that  returns  into 
itself,  and  the  concept  of  the  I,  mutually  exhaust  each 
other.  The  I  is  that  which  posits  itself,  and  nothing 
more;  that  which  posits  itself  is  the  I,  and  nothing 
more."*  Surely,  this  pure  notion  of  outgoing  and  self- 
returning  activity  admits  of  no  conceivable  division  except 
into  the  outgo  and  the  self-return;  but,  if  these  are  divided 
into  two  independent  acts,  the  unity  of  the  Thathandlung, 
and  with  it  the  unity  of  the  Ichheit,  are  totally  abolished. 
Such  a  division  should  be  for  Fichte  unthinkable ;  it  would 


»  Werke,  I.  523. 


VOL.  I  — 16 


242 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


be  even  more  niinous  than  that  conversion  of  the  outgo 
into  the  self-return  for  which  Fichte's  mysterious  Anstoss 
is  no  explanation.     The  "self-returning  activity,"  as  a  pure 
universal  concept,  must  surely  be  one  and  indivisible,  or  the 
unity  of  the  Ichheit  is  destroyed  and  the  JVissenschaftslehre 
self-exploded.     By   what  logical   warrant,   then,   does   he 
divide  the  Pure  I  into  a   "divisible  I  "and  a  "divisible 
Not-I "  ?     That  these  cannot  be  species  within  the  Pure  I, 
he   clearly   sees;    for,  since   the    genus   enters   with    the 
specific  difference  into  the  definition  of  every  species,  the 
empirical  individual  or  "  divisible  I "  would  then  be  a  Pure 
I,   and  the  empirical  world  of  phaenomena  or  "  divisible 
Not-I "   would  be  a  Pure  I,  too,  —  precisely  as  the  tiger 
and  the  lion  are  each  a  cat.     Such  a  result  would  be  pure 
nonsense,  of  course.     But   Fichte  does  not  help  matters, 
when  he  calls  his  "  divisible  I "  and  "  divisible  Not-I,"  not 
species,  but  accidents:  *^ etwas  (Accidenzen)  im  Ich,*'     For 
the  accident  (to  avfiP^Pr^Ko^)  never  belongs  to  the  genus,  to 
the  species,  to  any  universal,  but  solely  to  the  individual; 
and  to  call  the  Empirical  I  an  "accident"  of  the  Pure  I  is 
not  to  account  for  it  in  the  least,  or  find  a  logical  place  for 
it  in  the    Wissenschaftslehre,  but  simply  to  degrade  the 
Pure  I  itself  to  the  rank  of  a  mere  individual,  that  is,  to 
the  rank  of  the  only  concept  that  can  possibly  support 
"accidents."     Extremes  meet!     This  is  " descent "  with  a 
vengeance   {gar  kein  Heraufsteigen,  sondern  ein  Heralstei- 
gen).     The  truth  is  that   the  whole  philosophy  of  "pure 
thought,"    which    begins    with    a    rigorous    exclusion    of 
"  experience  "  from  "  knowledge  "  and  seeks  the  latter  in 
"  pure  reason  "  alone,  fails  utterly  in  the  endeavor  to  think 
any  Real  I  whatsoever.     How  could  it  be  otherwise  with 
the  Aristotelian  Paradox  for  foundation?     Fichte's  failure 
is  only  the  failure  of  his  school,  while  his  successes  are  his 
own. 

But  let  us  persevere  in  the  examination  of  his  theory  as 
it  stands.  We  have  already  seen  that  it  excludes  all  in- 
dividuality  from  the  I-liood,  and  reduces  the  individual  to 


THE   TRANSITION  IN  FICHTE 


243 


a  mere  vanishing  "  accident "  of  the  Pure  I.  We  have  yet 
to  see  how  he  relates  the  I,  both  as  empirical  and  as  pure, 
to  the  We,  and  how  far  he  effects  a  rational  transition  from' 
one  to  the  other,  over  and  above  that  mere  common-sense 
assumption  of  human  plurality  which  he  and  all  other 
idealists,  with  innocent  and  amusing  gayety,  evervwhere 
make. 

§  114.  Our  attention  is  now  challenged  by  the  following 
long  but  important  passage  : — 

« *  We  can  form  no  other  notion  of  our  person,  under  the  con- 
cept of  the  I,  than  that  of  our  own  person  in  contrast  with  other 
persons,'  confess  other  opponents  of  the  Wissenschaftslehre.  *  / 
signifies  my  own  determinate  person,  just  as  I  am  now  named, 
Caius  or  Sempronius,  in  contrast  with  all  others  who  are  not  so 
named.  If  I  now  eliminate  by  abstraction  this  individual  person- 
ality, as  the  Wissenschaftslehre  requires,  tliere  remains  behind  to 
me  nothing  which  could  be  characterized  as  /;  I  might  just  as  well 
name  the  remainder  It.^ 

"  Wliat  is  it  that  this  objection,  advanced  with  so  much  bold- 
ness, really  means  to  say?  Does  it  speak  of  the  original  real 
synthesis  of  the  concept  of  the  individual  (their  own  person  and 
other  persons),  and  do  they  intend  therefore,  to  say :  nothing  is 
synthesized  in  this  concept  except  the  concept  of  an  object  in 
general,  that  is,  of  the  It,  and  the  distinction  from  others  of  its 
own  sort,  which,  consequently,  are  likewise  an  It  and  nothing 
more?  Or  does  it  rely  upon  verbal  usage,  and  do  they  mean  to 
say :  in  language  nothing  is  denoted  by  the  expression  /  except 
individuality? 

**  As  to  the  first  objection  :  every  one  who  is  still  master  of  his 
faculties  must  surely  comprehend  that,  by  the  distinction  of  an 
object  from  its  like,  and  therefore  from  other  objects,  nothing 
results  except  a  determined  object,  but  not  at  all  a  determined  person. 
With  regard  to  the  synthesis  of  the  concept  of  the  person,  the 
relation  is  quite  otherwise.  The  I-hood  (self-returning  activity, 
subject-objectivity,  or  what  you  please)  is  originally  opposed  to  the 
It,  to  mere  objectivity  ;  and  the  positing  of  these  concepts  is  abso- 
lute, conditioned  by  no  other  positing,  —  thetic,  not  synthetic. 
To  something  which  has  been  posited  in  this  first  positing  as  an  //, 
as  mere  object,  as  something  external  to  us,  the  concept  of  I-hood 


244 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PIIILOSOPnY 


which  has  been  developed  in  ourselves  is  transferred,^  and  synthet- 
ically united  with  it ;  and  first  through  this  conditioned  synthesis 
there  arises  for  us  a  Thou,  The  concept  of  the  Thou  originates 
out  of  the  union  of  the  It  and  the  I.  The  concept  of  the  I  in  this 
opposition,  therefore,  as  the  concept  of  the  individual,  is  the  syn- 
thesis of  the  I  with  itself.  In  the  act  described,  I  am  that  which 
posits  itself  —  not  posits  in  general,  but  posits  as  I;  and,  in  the 
same  act,  thou  art  that  which  is  posited  hy  vie,  and  not  that  which 
is  posited  hy  itself,  as  I.  This  product  of  a  synthesis  which  has  to 
be  explained  can  doubtless  be  eliminated  by  abstraction  ;  for  what 
one  has  himself  synthesized,  one  should  certainly  be  able  to 
analyze  again.  That  which  remains  behind  after  the  abstraction 
is  the  I  in  general,  that  is,  the  Not-Object.  Taken  in  this  sense, 
this  objection  would  be  very  absurd. 

"Or  do  these  opponents  rely  on  verbal  usage?  If  they  were 
right  in  the  assertion  that  the  word  I  has  hitherto  signified  in 
language  the  individual  alone,  would  it  follow,  from  the  fact  that  a 
distinction  which  needs  to  be  pointed  out  in  the  original  synthesis 
has  hitherto  not  been  noticed  and  expressed  in  speech,  that  it  must 
never  be  noticed  and  never  expressed  ?  But  are  they  right  in  that 
assertion  ?    Of  what  verbal  usage  may  they  speak  ? 

"  Of  the  philosophical  ?  That  Kant  takes  the  concept  of  the 
Pure  I  in  the  same  sense  in  which  the  Wissenschajlslehre  takes  it, 
I  have  already  shown  above.  When  it  is  said,  *  I  am  that  which 
thinks  in  this  thought,'  do  I  then  oppose  myself  merely  to  other 
persons  outside  of  me,  or  do  I  not  rather  oppose  myself  to  every 

1  Fichte's  word  for  "transferred"  is  iibertragen,  which  betrays  a  con- 
scious reference  to  and  acceptance  of  Kant's  theory  of  "transference" 
{Uebertroffung),  already  stated  and  sufficiently  criticised  above  in  §  102. 
To  the  criticisms  there  urged,  Fichte  here  makes  no  anticipatory  sem- 
blance of  a  reply.  He  does  not  show  how  a  mere  It,  posited  absolutely 
by  the  /,  can  become  a  Thou  outside  of  the  I  that  posits  it,  without 
becoming  at  the  same  time  a  Ding  an  sich  as  well  as  an  Ich  an  nch  —  for 
him  an  insufferable  result:  the  Thou,  compound  of  It  and  /,  an  It  which 
becomes  an  /,  is  an  It  in  itself  and  an  /  hy  'Hransferencc  "  alone.  Nor 
does  he  in  the  least  explain  the  miraculous  process  by  which  the  "concept 
of  the  I "  can  bo  "transferred  "  into  a  mere  It,  so  as  to  metamorphose  it 
into  a  Thou;  nor  throw  any  light  on  the  question  whether  it  is  the  pure 
or  the  empirical  consciousness  which  is  "transferred."  Yet  (Werke,  I. 
490)  he  tenders  to  us  this  same  blind  explanation  of  "  tiansf erence "  as 
accounting  for  the  "  Kantian  empirical  realism." 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  FICHTE 


245 


particular  thought?    *The  principle  of  the  necessary  unity  of 
apperception  is  itself  identical,  consequently  an  analytical  propo- 
sition,' says  Kant.     That  means  the  same  thing  which  I  likewise 
said:  the  I  originates  through  no  synthesis,  whose  manifold  one 
might  further  analyze,  but  through  an  absolute  thesis.     This  I, 
however,  is  the  I-hood  in  general;  for  the  concept  of  individuality 
originates  evidently  through  synthesis,  as  I  have  just  proved,  and 
the  principle  of  it  is  a  synthetical  proposition.     Reinhold,  in  his 
law  of  consciousness,  speaks  of  the  subject,  in  German,  vom  Ich; 
to  be  sure,  merely  as  of  the  presenter  or  representer  [vom  Vorstel- 
Icnden],  but  here  that  is  nothing  to  the  point.     In  distinguishing 
niyself  as  representer  from  the  represented  [vom  Vorgestellten],  do  I 
distinguish  myself  merely  from  other  persons,  or  do  I  distinguish 
myself  from  everything  represented,  as  such  ?    Even  in  the  case  of 
the  above  lauded  philosophers,  who  do  not,  like  Kant  and  the 
Wissenschaflslehre,  make  the  I  the  presupposition  of  the  manifold 
of  representation,  but  constitute  it  out  of  that,  is  their  one  thinking 
principle  in  the  manifold  thought  the  individual  only,  or  is  it  not 
rather  the  intelligence  in  general  [vovi  rather  than  6  rh  ai/^/jowroy]  ? 
In   one  word  :   is  there   indeed  any  philosopher  of  repute  who, 
before  them,  has  made  the  discovery  that  /  signifies  the  individual 
only,  and  that,  if  individuality  is  abstracted,  there  remains  nothing 
behind  but  an  object  in  general? 

"  Or  do  they  speak  of  the  common  verbal  usage  ?    To  point  out 
this,  I  am  obliged  to  introduce  examples  from  common  life.     If 
you  call  to  someone  in  the  darkness,  *  Who  is  there? '  and  he  gives 
you  for  answer, '  It  is  I,'  on  the  supposition  that  his  voice  is  known 
to  you,  it  is  clear  that  he  speaks  of  himself  as  this  determined 
person,  and  is  to  be  understood  as  saying,  '  It  is  I  who  am  called 
so  and  so,  and  no  one  of  all  the  rest  who  are  not  so  called ; '  and 
this  because  you,  in  consequence  of  your  question,  *  Who  is  there?' 
already  presuppose  that  it  is  some  reasonable  being,  and  now  only 
wish  to  know  what  particular  one  among  the  possible  reasonable 
beings  it  is.     But  if  you,  perhaps,  —  pardon  me  this  example, 
which  I  find  especially  convenient,  —  are  sewing  or  cutting  some 
garment  on  the  body  of  a  person,  and  you  unawares  wound  him, 
he  would  possibly  cry  out,  *  Hark!  that  is  /,  you  are  hitting  me.* 
What  would  he  mean  by  that?    Not  that  he  is  this  determinate 
person  and  no  other,  for  that  you  know  very  well ;  but  that  what 
you  are  hitting  is  not  his  dead  and  feelingless  garment,  but  his 
living  and  feeling  self— which  you  did  not  know.     By  this  *I' 


246 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


he  does  not  distinguish  himself  from  other  persons,  but  from 
things.  This  distinction  is  ever-present  in  Ufe,  and  without  it  we 
cannot  take  a  step  on  the  ground  or  move  a  hand  in  the  air. 

"  In  short,  I-hood  and  individuality  are  very  different  concepts 
and  the  composite  character  of  the  latter  can  be  very  distinctly 
observed.     By  the  former  we  oppose  ourselves  to  everything  which 
IS  outside  of  us,  not  simply  to  persons  outside  of  us,  and  we  com- 
prehend under  it  not  only  our  determined  personaHty,  but  our 
intellectual  nature  in  general;  and  so  the  word  is  used  in  philo- 
sophical and  in  ordinary  language.     The  objection  under  consider- 
ation  reveals,  accordingly,  not  only  an  unusual  want  of  thought 
but  also  a  great  ignorance  and  unfamiliarity  with  the  commonest 
philosophical  literature.     But  they  persist  in  their  incapacity  of 
thinking  the  concept  explained  to  them,  and  we  must  believe  their 
word.     Not  that  they  must  needs  lack  the  general  concept  of  the 
Pure  I,  in  the  sense  of  mere  rationality  and  intellectuality ;  for 
then  they  would  cease,  as  much  as  a  block  of  wood,  to  make 
objections  to  us.     But  it  is  the  concept  of  this  concept  {der  BegriJ 
dieses  Begriffs)  which  fails  them,  and  to  which  they  are  unable  to 
elevate  themselves.     Of  course  they  have  it  in* themselves;  they 
simply  do  not  know  that  they  have  it.     The  ground  of  this  inca- 
pacity of  theirs  does  not  lie  in  any  particular  weakness  of  their 
thinking  powers,  but  in  a  weakness   of  their  whole  character. 
Their  I,  in  the  sense  in  which  they  take  the  word,  that  is,  their 
individual  person,  is  the  ultimate  aim  of  their  conduct,  and  conse- 
quently the  limit  of  their  distinct  thought.     It  is  for  them  the  only 
true  substance,  and  reason  is  only  an  accident  of  it.     Their  i>er8on 
does  not  exist  as  a  particular  expression  of  reason,  but  reason 
exists  in  order  to  help  their  person  through  the  world ;  if  their 
person  could  only  be  just  as  well  off  without  reason,  we  could  dis- 
pense  with  reason,  and  then  there  would  be  no  reason  at  all.     This 
mode  of  thinking  betrays  itself  throughout  the  whole  system  of 
their  ideas,  in  all  their  assertions,  and  many  among  them  are 
honest  enough  to  make  no  concealment  of  it     These  are  quite 
right  in  their  confession  of  incapacity,  so  far  as  they  themselves  are 
concerned ;  only  they  must  not  give  out  for  objective  truth  what 
has  merely  subjective  validity.     In  the  Wissenschajlslehre  the  rela- 
tion is  precisely  the  reverse :  there  reason  is  the  only  thing  in 
itself  [;.  e.  the  Ich  an  «cA],  and  individuality  is  only  accidental 
[accidenteU]',  reason  is  the  end,  and  personality  the  means;  per- 
sonality  is  only  a  particular  mode  of  expressing  reason  which 'must 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  FICHTE 


247 


evermore  lose  itself  in  the  universal  form  of  reason  itself.  For 
the  Wissenschaftslehrej  only  reason  is  eternal ;  individuality  must 
everlastingly  perish.  He  who  shall  not  first  of  all  conform  his  will 
to  this  order  of  things  will  also  never  attain  to  a  true  understand- 
ing of  the  Wissenschaftslehre.^^  ^ 

§  115.  We  have  let  Fichte  state  his  own  case  fully  and 
at  length  in  his  own  way.  It  remains  to  examine  his 
statement. 

The  objection  of  certain  unnamed  opponents  whom  Fichte 
undertook  to  refute,  although  not  put  by  him  in  such  terms 
as  are  adapted  to  bring  out  its  full  force,  simply  because  he 
could  not  escape  from  the  Aristotelian  Paradox,  goes  deeper 
than  he  perceived ;  undoubtedly  deeper  than  his  opponents 
themselves  perceived.  It  raises  the  question  of  the  real 
unity  of  the  I  in  the  real  universality  of  the  We,  and 
demands  such  a  notion  of  the  real  person  as  shall  recognize 
the  independent  equality  of  many  real  persons  in  real  human 
society.  It  means  that  we  must  have,  not  the  "original 
real  synthesis  of  the  concept  of  the  individual  (their  own 
person  and  other  persons),"  but  the  original  synthesis  of 
the  generic  unity  of  apperception  as  I  and  Other-I^s,  or  I  in 
the  Wey  by  which  the  1  is  given  not  as  a  mere  "  object  in 
general"  or  empty  "It,"  but  as  a  real  specimen  in  a  real 
species.  It  means  that,  "in  language,"  the  expression  I 
denotes,  not  mere  "individuality,"  but  the  identity  in 
difference  of  individuality  and  universality,  each  element 
conditioning  and  conditioned  by  the  other  in  the  real  unit- 
universal.  It  maintains  that  the  word  I,  whatever  else  it 
may  signify  besides,  must  and  does  signify  this  real  unity 
of  the  individual  and  the  real  independent  equality  of  many 
individuals  as  coexistences  in  the  We,  each  as  aii  I  in  its 
oivn  right ;  and  that,  if  individual  personality  and  independ- 
ent equality  are  to  be  eliminated  from  the  notion  of  the  I, 
the  I  is  evaporated  into  an  unreality  which  is  neither  speci- 
men nor  species,  a  mere  impersonal  thing  without  either 
empirical  or  rational  self-consciousness,  a  mere  abstraction 
^  Zweite  Eiuleitung,  u.  8.  w.     Werke,  I.  501-605. 


248 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  FICHTE 


249 


without  other  reality  than  that  of  an  unconscious  entity  as 
a  mere  object  of  thought,  —not  an  /,  or  the  /,  or  I  at  all, 
but  merely  It, 

This  was  the  deeper  meaning  of  the  objection  raised  by 
Fichte's  opponents,  easily  discernible  even  in  his  statement 
of  it.  But  he  failed  to  penetrate  to  the  heart  of  their  diffi- 
culty, much  more  to  solve  it.  "The  I  must  be  a  real 
person,  at  once  individual  and  universal,  in  order  to  explain 
the  We  as  many  persons ;  if  you  strike  out  its  real  person- 
ality, you  strike  out  its  real  I-hood  and  degrade  it  to  an 
It."  This  was  the  pith  of  the  objection,  however  stammer- 
ingly  articulated.  What  was  the  pith  of  his  reply  ?  «  The 
I  cannot  be  a  real  person,  because  it  must  be  a  pure  uni- 
versal, and  not  an  individual  at  all ;  the  universal  I  [to  ctSos 
TO  cVoV]  which  is  immanent  or  inherent  in  the  individual  I 
is  alone  real ;  the  individual  I  [cZSos  -f-  {^A^  =  5  tis  iv^puwros] 
is  a  mere  vanishing  accident  [frviiP^PrjKo^]  of  the  universal 
I;  the  person  as  such  perishes,  but  leaves  behind  the  uni- 
versal, impersonal,  and  imperishable  Pure  I  [vov^\  of  which 
it  is  only  a  transitory  and  brief  expression.  The  concept 
of  the  individual  is  that  of  the  empirical  I,  as  opposed  to 
the  empirical  Thou.  But  the  Thou  is  a  mere  compound  of 
the  I  and  the  It ;  for,  to  some  It  in  the  phaenomenal  world 
of  Its,  the  empirical  I  transfers  its  own  concept  of  I-hood, 
and  thus  clothes  it  as  an  empirical  Thou,  an  It  which 
appears  as  another  I.  But  the  I  which  posits  this  com- 
pound  of  It  and  I  as  Thou,  and  the  I  which  is  thus  posited, 
are  one  and  the  same  I;  it  is  merely  a  synthesis  of  the  I 
with  itself." 

Is  this  an  answer  to  the  real  difficulty  propounded  ?  "  If 
you  strike  individuality  out  of  the  individual  I,"  say  the 
objectors,  in  the  true  meaning  of  their  objection,  "you 
strike  out  its  real  I-hood,  and  have  nothing  left  but  an  It." 
"  On  the  contrary,"  replies  Fichte,  "  I  do  strike  individual- 
ity out  of  the  individual  I,  and  I  have  left  the  Pure  I ;  and 
the  Pure  I  is  not  an  It."  Clearly,  the  difficulty  is  not  met, 
unless  the  real  I-hood  and  the  Pure  I  ai-e  one  and  the  same 


—  which  IS  not  the  case,  unless  the  Pure  I  is  self^sonscious 
What  distinguishes  the  I  from  the  It  is  the  presence  or 
absence  of  self-consciotisness :  whatever  has  self-conscious- 
ness is  an  I,  whatever  lacks  self-consciousness  is  an  It.  No 
other  distinction  between  the  two  has  ever  been  suggested 
so  far  as  we  know;  and  Fichte  himself  unqualifiedly  ap^ 
proves  it,  when  he  says  that  "  the  I  exists  so  far  only  as  it 
IS  conscious  to  itself  of  itself."  ^  But,  if  the  distinction 
holds,  Fichte's  objectors  are  in  the  right,  and  his  answer  to 
their  objection  ha^  said  nothing  whatever  to  put  them  in  the 
wrong.  He  does  not  at  all  answer  them  until  he  proves 
that  the  Pure  I  is  conscious  as  such ;  but  this  he  does  not 
even  try  to  prove.  So  far  from  this,  they  can  prove  to  him 
out  of  his  own  mouth  that,  when  he  strikes  individuality 
out  of  the  individual  I,  the  residuum  which  he  so  jealously 
guards  as  a  Pure  I  is,  by  his  own  principles,  unconscious, 
and  therefore  nothing  but  a  Pure  It.  To  show  this,  we 
must  quote  another  passage. 

§  116.  "The  first  question  would  be, '  How  is  the  I  for  itself?' 
and  the  first  postulate,  *  Think  thyself,  construct  the  concept  of 
thyself,  and  notice  how  thou  doest  it.* 

"  Every  one  who  only  does  this,  maintains  the  philosopher  will 
find  that,  m  the  thinking  of  that  concept,  his  activity  as  intelli- 
gence goes  back  into  itself,  makes  itself  its  own  object. 

**  In  the  first  place,  what  in  the  act  described  belongs  to  the 
phUosopher  as  such,  and  what  to  the  I  which  is  to  be  observed  by 
him  V  To  the  I,  nothing  more  than  the  turning-back  into  itself  ; 
all  else  belongs  to  the  relation  between  it  and  the  philosopher,  for 
whom  already  exists,  as  mere  fact,  that  system  of  completed  ex- 
penence  which  is  to  be  brought  under  his  gaze  by  the  I,  in  order 
that  he  may  learn  to  know  the  manner  of  its  origination. 

"  The  I  goes  back  into  itself,  —  that  is  maintained.  Does  it  not 
then,  already  exist  for  itself  before  this  going  back,  and  independ- 
ently of  It?  Must  it  not  already  exist  for  itself,  in  order  to  be 
able  to  make  itself  the  goal  of  an  action  ?  If  this  is  so,  does  not 
your  philosophy  take  for  granted  what  it  ought  to  explain  ? 

1  "Das  Ich  ist  nur  insofem,  inwiefern  es  sich  seiner  bewusst  ist." 
(Werke,  I.  97.) 


250 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


"  I  answer :  not  at  all.  First  by  this  act,  and  by  it  alone,  by 
an  action  on  an  action,  which  particular  action  no  action  in  general 
precedes,  does  the  I  originate  for  itself.  Only  for  the  philosopher 
does  it  pre-exist  as  a  fact,  because  he  has  already  passed  through 
the  whole  experience.  He  must  express  himself  as  he  does,  simply 
in  order  to  be  understood ;  and  he  can  express  himself  so,  because 
he  has  already  long  ago  formed  all  the  requisite  concepts. 

**  What,  then,  considering  first  of  all  the  observed  I,  is  this  its 
going  back  into  itself  ?  Under  what  class  of  the  modifications  of 
consciousness  should  it  be  put  ?  It  is  not  conception  [kein  Begreifen] ; 
this  originates  through  the  opposition  of  a  Not-I,  and  through  the 
determination  of  the  I  in  that  opposition.  Consequently,  it  is  a 
mere  intuition  [eine  hlosse  Anschauung].  For  these  reasons,  also,  it 
is  not  consciousness,  certainly  not  self-consciousness  [kein  Beumsst- 
sein,  nicht  einmal  Selbstbewusstsein].  Solely  because  no  conscious- 
ness comes  to  pass  through  this  simple  act  [of  going  back  or 
self-return],  another  act  is  inferred  by  which  a  Not-I  arises  for  us ; 
solely  by  that  other  act  does  a  progress  of  philosophical  reasoning 
and  the  required  deduction  of  the  system  of  experience  become 
possible.  By  the  act  described,  the  I  is  advanced  merely  to  the 
possibility  of  self-consciousness,  and  with  it  of  all  other  conscious- 
ness, but  there  arises  yet  no  real  consciousness  [kein  wirkliches 
Beiousstsein].  The  act  in  question  is  simply  a  part  of  that  whole 
procedure  of  the  intelligence  by  which  it  brings  about  its  con- 
sciousness—  a  part  to  be  isolated  by  the  philosopher  alone,  but 
originally  not  isolated. 

"On  the  other  hand,  how  is  it  with  the  philosopher?  That 
self-constructing  I  is  no  other  than  his  own  [Jenes  sich  selbst  con- 
struirende  Ich  ist  kein  andereSj  als  sein  eigenes].  Only  in  himself  can 
he  intuite  the  act  of  the  I  in  question,  and,  in  order  to  be  able  to 
intuite  it,  he  must  perform  it.  He  produces  it  in  himself  volun- 
tarily and  with  freedom/'  ^ 

§  117.  Here,  pointed  out  and  elaborated  by  Fichte  him- 
self with  singular  precision,  we  learn  the  essential  distinc- 
tion he  draws  between  das  Ich  and  das  Individuumy  the 
Pure  I  and  the  Eeal  I.  Nothing  whatever  belongs  to  the 
Pure  I,  he  says,  beyond  "  the  return  into  itself  "of  an  ac- 
tivity which  is  absolutely  spontaneous  and  underived,  and 

1  Werke,  I.  458-460. 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  FICHTE 


251 


whose  alleged  origin  is  a  mere  recoil  on  itself  as  "an  ac- 
tion on  an  action"  —  a  "determinate  action"  which  is  ab- 
solutely unconditioned  by  any  "  action  in  general "  prior  to 
itself  —  an  action,  therefore,  which  is  confessedly  unparall- 
eled elsewhere,  a  unit  of  no  universal,  a  thing  of  no  kind, 
and  for  that  reason  a  pure  impossibility  in  being  as  well  as 
in  thought.     It  could  not  even  appear  in  Fichte's  system  as 
a  metaphysical  entity,  unless,   unrecognized   by  him,   his 
own  mind  had  necessarily  supplied  motion  as  the  universal 
conditioning  activity  of  which  both  the  outgo  and  the  self- 
return  of  das  Ich  must  be  thought  as  two  particular  and 
differently  determined  units ;   for  only   as   such  can  the 
"self-returning  activity"   itself  be  thought  at  all.      But 
(waiving  this  point)  the  "self-returning  activity"  is  de- 
termined further  in  itself  as  a  "  mere  intuition : "  not  a 
"  concept,"  and  therefore  not  a  cognition,^  not  a  "  self-con- 
sciousness," not  a  "  real  consciousness  "  at  all.     That  is  to 
say,  the  l*ure  I,  if  once  divorced  from  the   individuality 
or  personality  which  is  only  its  non-essentiiil  iind  perishing 
"accident,"  is  not  in  itself  even  a  ''subjt^ct-object,"  does 
not  know  itself,  is  not  conscious  of  itself,  is  in  itself  uncon- 
scious^ and  therefore,  by  Fichte's  own  declaration  that  "  the 
I  exists  in  so  far  only  as  it  is  conscious  to  itself  of  itself,"  * 
not  an  existent  /  at  all,  but  only  an  existent  It,     When, 
therefore,  he  strikes  out  of  das  Ich  the  individuality  or  per- 
sonality which,  by  his  own  showing,  is  the  ground  of  its 
only  possible  self-consciousness,  he  himself  reduces  das  Ich 
to  das  Es,  and  establishes  the  truth  of  the  very  objection 
which  he  has  vainly  tried  to  refute. 

But  this  is  not  all.  Not  only  does  Fichte  prove,  however 
much  against  his  will  and  intent,  that  the  Pure  I  divested  of 
individuality  is  nothing  whatever  but  a  Pure  It,  but  he  also 
proves  that  the  individual  as  such  is  the  only  Real  I  —  that 

^  *'  Eine  blosse  Anschauung  giebt  kein  Bewusstseyn  ;  man  weiss  nur 
von  deiujenigeu,  was  man  begreift  und  denkt."     (Werke,  I.  491.) 

'  "Das  Ich  ist  uur  iusoferu,  inwieferu  es  sich  seiner  bewusst  ist." 
iJtM,  I.  97.) 


252 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


the  Pure  I  becomes  a  Real  I  only  by  becoming  individual- 
ized.    His  "  philosopher  as  such  "  is  only  das  Individuum, 
only  an  individual  who  has  fitted  himself  to  philosophize; 
and  Fichte,  as  we  have  seen,  teaches  that,  in  the  philoso- 
pher,  "  the  I  which  constructs  itself  is  no  other  than  his 
own.''    In  other  words,  the  I  becomes  real  solely  by  becom- 
ing an  individual ;  the  "  mere  intuition  "  of  "  self-returning 
activity  "  which  constitutes  the  whole  being  of  the  Pure  I 
as  such,  and  without  which  the  Pure  I  itself  would  vanish, 
is  conditioned  on  the  philosopher's  own  hidividual  or  per^ 
sonal  irituition,  an  intuitive  act  which  the  philosopher  as 
an  individual  or  person  must  perform,  and  does  perform 
"voluntarily  and  with  freedom,"  that  is,  with  free  self- 
conscious  volition.     It  is  strange  that  Fichte  should  not 
have  perceived  the  real  bearing  and  import  of  these  deter- 
minations.    They  do  not  show,  nor  tend  to  show,  that  das 
Indioiduum  is  a  mere  "accident"  of  das  Ich,  and  that  the 
Ichheit  is  absolutely  independent  of  and  separable  from 
the  Individualltat :  on  the  contrary,  they  show  that  das  Ich 
is  nothing  but  an  inalienable  intuition,  a  "  voluntary  and 
free  "  act,  of  das  Individuum,  and  that  the  Ichheit  and  the 
Individualltat  inseparably  depend  on  each  other.     If  the 
individual  must  vanish,  the  I-hood  which  is  nothing  but  his 
own  intuition  of  "  self -returning  activity  "  in  himself  must 
vanish  with  him,  and  nothing  of  the  I  would  remain  in 
being,  not  even  an  It.    If,  in  order  to  attain  reality,  the  I 
must  construct  itself  in  the  philosopher,  not  as  such,  but 
as   an  individual  merely,  then  the  individual  is  just  as 
necessary  to  the  I  as  the  I  is  to  the  individual ;  the  univer- 
sal and  the  individual  must  reciprocally  condition  each 
other  in  the  unit-universal,  as  Real  I ;  and  das  Ich  can 
never  survive  das  Individuum.     These  conclusions  lie  in 
Fichte's  own  premises,  which  he  has  failed  to  handle  logic- 
ally.   The  logical  result  of  his  own  determinations  would 
simply  confirm  the  results  above  arrived  at  in  §  59  :  namely, 
that  the  only  Real  I,  real  in  any  other  sense  than  that  of  a 
barren  abstraction  in  speculative  metaphysics,  is  the  real 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  FICHTE 


253 


individual,  the  real  person  as  such,  and  that  the  scientific- 
philosophic  concept  of  the  real  person  as  such  can  be  noth- 
ing whatever  but  the  percept-concept :  "  I  know  myself  in 
each  and  all  of  my  conscious  states  as  One  of  the  We." 
When  Fichte,  therefore,  strikes  Individualitdt  out  of  his 
Ichheit,  and  das  Individuum  out  of  his  das  Ich,  instead  of 
retaining  das  Ich  as  a  reality,  he  annihilates  the  reality  of 
both,  and  retains  das  Ich  solely  as  a  barren  abstraction,  a 
mere  object  of  thought,  a  mere  "  entity  of  reason,"  das  Es, 

—  which  is  precisely  what  his  opponents  charged  him  with 
doing,  in  the  objection  which  he  failed  to  refute.  "  I  think 
myself,"  Fichte  says,  "and  that  pure  self -re  turning  activity 
is  the  real  whole  of  my  Pure  I."  "  Not  so,"  might  his  oppo- 
nents reply ;  "  you  do  not  and  cannot  think  yourself  at  all, 
unless  you  think  yourself  (1)  as  in  each  and  all  of  your 
conscious  states,  and  (2)  as  One  of  the  We.  The  first  gives 
you  your  internal  empirical  multiplicity  or  universality; 
the  second  gives  you  your  external  individuality  and  ra- 
tional unity  ;  both  together  give  you  your  whole  reality  as 
a  unit-universal,  or  possible  object  of  knowledge.  And 
you  cannot  be  an  object  of  knowledge,  even  to  yourself, 
until  you  think  and  know  yourself  as  you  are  in  yourself 

—  a  unit-universal.  Your  Pure  I  or  das  Ich  is  a  blank 
potentiality  of  self-consciousness,  at  the  most  a  blank  con- 
dition of  it,  a  mere  abstract  and  unreal  It,  unless  it  is  com- 
plemented with  your  Empirical  I  or  da^  Individuum,  It  is 
the  inseparable  and  conditioning  union  of  the  two  concepts 
that  must  constitute  your  concept  of  yourself  as  a  Real  I, 
empirical  and  rational  at  once,  and  solely  as  such,  by  your 
own  confession,  self-conscious  or  capable  of  self-conscious- 
ness." What  effective  rejoinder  could  Fichte  make  to  this 
reply  ? 

§  118.  By  Fichte's  own  principles  of  reasoning,  it  thus 
becomes  clear  that  the  Pure  I  retains  and  can  retain  no 
reality  whatever,  that  is,  no  real  self-consciousness,  when 
individuality  has  "  vanished."  The  I  can  be  real  only  as 
the  identity  in  difference  of  individuality  and  universality. 


254 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


When  Fichte  made  his  epochal  protest  against  Kant's 
I*  separation  "  of  subject  and  object  in  self-consciousness,  he 
in  effect  proclaimed  the  doctrine  of  their  identity  in  differ- 
ence as  Subject-Object ;  by  parity  of  reasoning,  he  ought  to 
have  protested  against  his  "  own  separation  "of  the  Pure  I 
and  the  Empirical  I,  and  proclaimed  the  doctrine  of  their 
identity  in  difference  as  the  Real  I.  But  he  did  not.  The 
consequence  of  this  inconsequence  shows  itself  in  his  amaz- 
ing theory  of  the  origin  of  das  Ich.  For  he  makes  this 
origin  an  absolute  miracle,  the  absolute  self-creation  of 
something  out  of  nothing. 

This  theory  lies  in  a  nutshell.  It  is  all  condensed  into 
the  sentence  already  quoted:  "First  by  this  act,  and  by  it 
alone,  by  an  action  on  an  action,  which  particular  action  no 
action  in  general  precedes,  does  the  I  orlyinate  for  itself."  * 
No  Being  {Seyn)  other  than  that  of  the  self-returning  activ- 
ity itself,  as  "  mere  intuition,"  conditions  this  self-originative 
act ;  no  universal  activity  conditions  it  as  a  particular  act ; 
no  prior  act  whatever  conditions  it ;  it  is  absolutely  uncon- 
ditioned, absolutely  spontaneous,  absolutely  first  and  sole  of 
its  kind;  it  is  something  self-born  out  of  nothing.  Such  a 
definition  defines  no  concept.  It  is  simply  unthinkable. 
"  De  nihilo  nihil,  in  nihilum  ?iil  j)osse  reverti,*^ 

Yet  there  is  in  it  an  element  of  necessary  truth.  In  any 
thinking  of  that  which  evolves,  room  must  be  found  for  the 
concept  of  spontaneity,  self-adaptation,  or  self-determina- 
tion. In  the  succession  of  stages  or  phases  which  together 
constitute  the  universal  evolution-series,  each  is  an  individ- 
ual unit  and  as  such  necessarily  unique  (see  §  §  81-83)  ;  and 
spontaneity  is  simply  the  origination  of  this  uniqueness,  the 
becoming  of  the  individual  difference,  the  emergence  of  the 
unique  unit  out  of  the  self -particularizing  universal.  The 
universal  is   itself  conditioned  by  this  necessity  of  self- 

1  "  Erst  durch  diesen  Act,  und  ledi<?lich  durch  ihn,  diirch  ein  Handeln 
auf  ein  Handeln  selbst,  welchera  bestinunten  Handeln  kein  Handeln 
iiberhaupt  vorhergeht,  wird  das  Ich  ursprunglich  fiir  sicdi  selbst."  ( Werka 
I.  459.) 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  FICHTE 


255 


particularization,  that  is,  it  can  be  a  universal  only  as  a 
universal  of  units ;  and  the  unit  is  conditioned  by  the 
necessity  of  origination  out  of,  yet  still  within,  its  own 
universal.  The  evolution-process  is  thus  necessarily  the 
identity  in  difference  of  continuity  and  discontinuity,  of 
heredity  and  spontaneity ;  and  these  two  essential  elements 
or  moments  must  enter  into  the  origin  of  every  unit  out  of, 
yet  still  within,  its  universaL 

Fichte's  theory  of  the  origin  of  the  I,  therefore,  is  funda- 
mentally untrue,  not  because  it  recognizes  the  element  of 
spontaneity,  but  because  it  does  not  recognize  the  element 
of  heredity.  He  absolutely  severs  the  I  from  the  We  — 
makes  the  unit  originate  in  itself  alone,  and  not  at  all  in  its 
universal  (absolutes  Selbst erxeug en  aus  Nichts).  He  abso- 
lutely fails  to  see  that  every  Ileal  I  inherits  its  capacity  of 
intuiting  its  own  self-returning  activity  because  it  pre- 
existed in  the  Real  We  as  a  Potential  I,  and  that  its  actual 
origination,  its  becoming  in  Space  and  Time,  is  its  evolu- 
tionary passage  from  potentiality  to  reality.  He  fails  to  see 
that  the  spontaneous  and  real  act  of  the  I,  in  its  "  quicken- 
ing "  or  embryonic  self-consciousness  as  Subject-Object,  is 
conditioned  by  that  generative  act  of  the  We,  as  the  uni- 
versal, by  which  the  capacity  of  self-consciousness  is  hered- 
itarily transmitted  to  the  new  I,  as  the  unit.  Contrary  to 
Fichte's  statement,  the  "  particular  action  "  of  self- intuit  ion 
must  be  preceded  by  the  "action  in  general"  of  generation^ 
by  which  the  I  itself,  as  a  unit,  originates  out  of,  yet  still 
within,  the  We,  as  its  universal.  His  merely  speculative 
explanation  of  the  origin  of  the  I,  founded  on  suppression 
of  individuality  or  the  individual  difference,  as  required  by 
the  Aristotelian  Paradox,  lands  us  in  miracle ;  while  the 
scientific  explanation  of  it  by  the  law  of  unit-universals  is 
completely  in  accord  with  experience  and  reason  alike. 
Thus  the  Pure  I,  as  a  something  self-originated  out  of 
nothing,  reduces  itself  to  the  Miraculous  I. 

§  119.  From  the  Pure  I,  therefore,  as  the  "  absolutely 
undeterminable"  or  "absolute  and  illimitable  subject  to 


256 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  rHILOSOPHY 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  FICHTE 


257 


which  nothing  is  equal  and  nothing  opposed,"  it  is  evident 
that  there  can  be  in  Fichte's  system  no  rational  transition 
whatever  to  the  We.  In  severing  the  I  from  the  We,  he 
severs  the  We  from  the  I.  The  Pure  I,  as  he  has  said 
above,  posits  within  itself,  as  divisible  substance,  a  di- 
visible I  and  a  divisible  Not-I,  but  only  as  mere  "acci- 
dents." But  the  Pure  I  cannot  be  held  to  have  any 
rational  relation  to  either  one  or  the  other  of  these,  when  it 
is  remembered  that  "  accident "  belongs  to  no  genus,  no 
species,  no  universal  as  such,  but  only  to  the  individual, 
and  that  Fichte  excludes  all  individuality  from  the  Pure  I. 
The  species  produces  the  specimen,  and  the  specimen  pro- 
duces the  accident;  the  species  can  no  more  produce  the 
accident  than  a  grandfather  can  beget  his  grandson.  Even 
if  we  should  grant  that  the  "  divisible  "  I  is  equivalent  to  the 
Real  We  as  the  species,  the  Pure  I  contains,  and  can  bestow, 
no  principle  of  plurality  or  "  divisibility  "  whatever,  least 
of  all  an  "  empirical  "  and  "  accidental "  plurality  ;  the  Pure 
I  and  the  Real  We  must  remain  for  Fichte  wholly  alien, 
foreign,  and  heterogeneous  to  each  other.  For  him,  there 
can  be  no  rational  transition  whatever  from  the  Pure  I  to 
the  Real  We. 

§  120.  From  the  Empirical  I,  however,  may  there  not  be 
for  him  a  rational  transition  to  the  Empirical  We  ?  He 
has  certainly  made  a  bold  attempt  to  effect  one,  as  we  have 
just  seen  in  §  114.  In  the  passage  there  translated,  he  at- 
tempts to  deduce  the  Thou,  and  therewith  the  We,  from 
the  act  of  "  transference  "  by  which  the  I  conceives  another 
I  through  a  synthesis  of  itself  with  the  It,  and  thereby 
creates  the  Thou  as  I  +  It  ( Vereinigung  des  Es  und  des 
Ich).  This  curious  and  ingenious  hypothesis,  which  is  no 
deduction,  however,  but  only  the  Gordian-knot-cutting  of  a 
problem  beyond  his  solution,  deserves  to  be  critically  ex- 
amined; for  it  is  the  original  foundation  of  the  "inferen- 
tial realism  "  which  is  the  sole  refuge  of  idealists  who 
shrink  from  "  solipsism  "  —  that  is,  from  the  logical  result 
of  the  principle  that  "  I  know  only  my  own  states  of  con- 


sciousness," or,  what  means  at  bottom  the  same  thing, 
"  the  immediate  object  of  consciousness  is  nothing  but  con- 
sciousness itself."  * 

It  is  Fichte's  central  and  sovereign  formula,  as  we  have 
seen,  that  "  the  I,  as  divisible  substance,  posits  within  it- 
self a  divisible  I  and  a  divisible  Not-I."  That  antithesis 
of  I  and  Not-I  is  his  explanation  of  the  origin  of  real  self- 
consciousness  (§  67).  The  Pure  I,  as  mere  intuition  of 
self-returning  activity,  is  not  knowledge,  because  it  is  not 
at  the  same  time  conception ;  all  real  knowledge  is  union 
of  intuition  and  conception,  as  Fichte  himself  maintains. 
But  it  follows  that  the  Pure  I  is  no  real  Subject-Object,  no 
real  self-knowledge  or  self-consciousness,  but  is  in  itself 
unconscious. 

The  unconscious  I,  then,  posits  within  itself  the  conscious 
I  and  the  unconscious  It  — -  a  world  of  unconscious  Its.  To 
some  one  of  these  unconscious  Its  (to  some  etwas  —  Fichte 
does  not  explain  how  or  why  the  particular  selection  is 
made)  the  conscious  I  « transfers "  its  own  inwardly  con- 
structed concept  of  I-hood;  and  through  this  union  of  an 
originally  unconscious  It  and  the  "  transferred"  concept  of 
I-hood  there  first  originates  a  Thou.  This  union  of  a 
"transferred"  I-hood  with  an  It,  however,  is  only  a  union 
of  the  "transferring"  I  with  itself;  the  "transferring  I" 
and  the  "  transferred  I "  remain  still  one  and  the  same  {die 
Synthesis  des  Ich  mit  sich  selhst)  ;  and  there  results,  not 
another  I  in  its  own  right,  not  another  I  in  virtue  of  its  own 
inwardly  constructed  concept  of  I-hood,  but  merely  an  I  by 

1  "  Da  diese  Frage  von  der  Einkehr  in  sich  selbst,  von  der  Bemerkung, 
dass  das  unmittelbare  Object  des  Bewusstseyns  doch  lediglich  das  Bewusst- 
seyn  selbst  sey,  ausgeht,  so  kann  sie  von  keinem  anderen  Seyn,  als  von 
einem  Seyn  fiir  uns  reden  ;  und  es  ware  vollig  widersinnig,  sio  mit  der 
Frage  nach  einera  Seyn  oline  Beziehung  auf  ein  Bewusstseyn  fur  einerlei 
zu  halten."  (Werke,  I.  456.)  Since  my  consciousness  is  the  only  "a 
consciousness "  of  which  /  can  speak  with  knowledge,  Fichte  ought  in 
logical  frankness  to  have  confessed  that  /  can  speak  of  no  other  **  being" 
than  being  for  im,  not  "  being  for  m."  But  this  avoidance  of  a  foe  whom 
one  cannot  front  is  characteristic  of  much  loose  modem  philosophizing. 


VOL.    I. 


17 


i 


258 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


"  transference,"  a  Thou  by  courtesy.  The  I  which  posits 
the  Thou  is  not  the  Pure  I  which  originally  posited  the 
"transferring  I,"  but  only  the  "transferring  I "  itself,  the 
empirical  individual.  The  Thou  which  is  thus  posited  by 
the  "  transferring  I,"  and  not  at  all  by  its  own  "  self-return- 
ing activity "  or  "  self-intuition  "  as  an  Ich  an  sich^  is  a 
Thou  which  is  "  posited  as  an  I  by  me^  and  not  by  itself  ^^ 
{das  in  demselben  Acte  durch  michj  nnd  nicht  durch  slch 
selbst,  als  Ich  gesetzte).  The  only  real  Thou  in  the  case, 
therefore,  is  a  mere  It,  dressed  up  in  the  garb  of  I-hood  by 
another  It  which  happens  to  be  an  I-in-itself,  and  which 
possesses  a  supernumerary  I-hood  to  spare  and  "transfer." 
Such  a  Thou  is  no  I-in-itself  at  all ;  it  is  a  puppet,  a  Mar- 
ionette Thou,  a  Thou  which  is  only  a  scare-crow  made  out 
of  a  stick  and  an  empty  coat,  a  mirror  reflecting  a  form 
which  is  not  in  it,  a  shadow  that  is  only  darkness  in  human 
shape  —  in  truth,  a  sham,  and  no  true  Thou  whatever. 
Out  of  a  million  such  Marionette  Thou^s,  Fichte  can  make 
no  true  We  whatever.  His  attempt  at  a  rational  transition 
from  the  Empirical  I  to  the  Empirical  We  remains  a  colos- 
sal failure. 

§  121.  What,  then,  is  the  net  result  of  Fichte 's  speculat- 
ive philosophy  of  the  I  ?  The  Pure  I,  the  Ich  an  sichy  is 
confessedly  solus  ipse  ;  the  Empirical  I,  or  the  individual 
as  real  person,  leaves  behind,  when  its  individuality  or 
personality  has  "  vanished,"  nothing  but  the  Pure  I,  which 
is  still  solus  ipse  ;  and,  even  while  it  lasts,  the  Empirical  I 
has  no  true  Thou  —  is  itself  solus  ipse.  Hence  the  Wissen- 
schaftslehrcy  reduced  to  its  ultimate  terms  of  a  Miraculous 
Pure  I,  a  Solitary  Empirical  I,  a  Marionette  Thou  and  a 
Marionette  We,  becomes  thus,  if  held  to  its  princijile  with 
logical  rigor,  solipsism  jmre  and  simple,  however  inconsist- 
ently coupled  in  actual  presentation  with  that  common- 
sense  recognition  of  the  plurality  of  human  consciousnesses 
which  redeems  it  from  practical  absurdity  at  the  price  of 
logical  inconsequence.  As  an  ostensible  excuse  for  this 
recognition,  and  for  this  logical  inconsequence,  later  forms 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  FICHTE 


259 


of  idealism  have  abandoned  Kant's  and  Fichte's  theory  of 
"  transference,"  and  substituted  that  of  "  inference."    But 
the  realistic  « inference  "  remains  still  a  purely  subjective 
act  of  the  inferring  consciousness,  confers  no  objective  real- 
ity or  independence,  and  lies  open  to  precisely  the  same 
fatal  criticism  of  yielding  only  a  Marionette  Thou.    If,  as 
Fichte  formulates   the   principle   of  subjectivism,  and  as 
countless  continuators  have  echoed  it  after  him,  "the  im- 
mediate object  of  consciousness  is  nothing  but  conscious- 
ness itself,"  1  no  "  inference  "  whatever  can  confer  upon  the 
Thou  an  equal  reality  per  se,  in  the  same  sense  in  which 
the  subject  I  vindicates  it  for   itself;   the  Thou  remains 
stin  merely  ''my  object,"  mere  "being  for  7ne,''  a  mere 
Marionette  Thou.    For  inference  is  a  purely  rational  act  of 
conception :  if  it  is  not  complemented  by  intuition,  by  ex- 
perience, by  real  consciousness,  it  is  not  knowledge;  and, 
unless  I  know  you  in  the  same  sense  in  which  I  know  my- 
self, namely  as  an  Ich  an  sich,  you  remain  for  me  a  mere 
hypothesis,  a  mere  state  of  my  own  consciousness,  a  mere 
It  which  I  arbitrarily  clothe  with  I-hood,  a  mere  Marion- 
ette  Thou.     The  only  logical  escape  from  solipsism  is  by 
recognizing  the  generic  unity  of  apperception  —  that  act  of 
immediate  consciousness  which  gives  the  I  and  the  Other-I 
in  one  indivisible  cognition  as  the  We,  and  which  makes 
self-consciousness  and  race-consciousness  absolutely  insep- 
arable (see  §§  59,  68,  69).     Any  other  principle  must  leave 
you,  respected  reader,  so  far  as  I  can  acknowledge  your 
"  being  for  me,"  a  mere  It  in  yourself  and  an  /  by  my  cour- 
tesy alone,  a  mere  Marionette  Thou.     What  defeat  of  phi- 
losophy could  be  more  complete  ?    With  all  its  acuteness, 
genius,  and  brave  highmindedness,  a    Wissenschaftslehre 

»  "  —  das  unmittelbare  Object  des  Bewusstseyns  docli  ledi^lich  das 
BewTisstseyn  selbst  sey."  (Werke,  I.  456.)  Compare  Hegel's  statement 
of  the  same  principle  :  "  Das  Inncre  der  Dinge  ist  der  Gcdanke  oder 
Begriff  derselben.  Indem  das  Bewusstsein  das  Innere  zum  Gegenstande 
hat,  hat  es  den  Gedanken  oder  eben  so  sehr  seine  eigene  Reflexion  oder 
Form,  somit  iiberhanpt  sicli  znm  Gegenstande."     (Werke,  XVIII.  84.) 


260 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


which  loses  its  Pure  I  in  a  mere  unconscious  It,  resolves  its 
Empirical  I  into  a  mere  "  accident "  of  this  It,  and  finds  no 
role  for  the  Thou  and  the  We  save  that  of  dancing  marion- 
ettes, can  hardly  be  considered  a  final  philosophy  of  the  I. 
Its  failure,  however,  is  at  last  only  the  failure  of  the  Aris- 
totelian Paradox,  and  so  only  one  more  illustration  of  the 
necessity  of  a  reformed  theory  of  universals. 


It 


ii 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  TRANSITION  IN  HEGEL:  THE  HEGELIAN  PARADOX 

§  122.  HegePs  notion  of  the  I  is  substantially  the  same 
as  Fichte's.  This  it  could  not  fail  to  be,  since  both  of  these 
great  thinkers  derive  it  from  a  common  source  in  that  gen- 
eral theory  of  the  relation  between  the  universal  and  the 
individual  which  we  have  designated  as  the  Aristotelian 
Paradox  (§  78,  VI).  But  HegePs  application  of  this  theory 
to  the  supreme  problem  of  philosophy,  determination  of  the 
I,  the  We,  and  their  mutual  relation,  led  him  to  a  culmi- 
nating formula  which,  if  not  for  truth,  certainly  for  bold- 
ness, subtilty,  and  logical  precision,  has  never  been 
surpassed  in  the  history  of  speculation  :  "  Ich  das  Wir,  unci 
Wir  das  Ich  istJ'  *  That  is,  the  I  is  the  We ;  the  We  is 
the  I ;  the  two  are  absolutely  one  ;  as  essences,  and  as  con- 
cepts of  essence,  there  is  absolutely  no  difference  between 
them.  That  is  HegePs  doctrine  of  doctrines,  as  we  are  now 
to  explain. 

To  Aristotle,  the  conceptual  relation  of  the  universal  and 
the  individual,  despite  his  helpless  and  bewildered  reserva- 
tion as  to  mere  number  (to  aptOfjua  h),  is  that  of  absolute 
identity  without  difference.  Whether  with  regard  to  real- 
ity or  to  conceptual  intelligibility,  to  Being  or  to  Thought, 
the  ToSc  Tt  and  the  cTSos  to  ivov  are  identical ;  the  addition  of 
matter  as  mere  potentiality  to  the  universal,  by  which  the 
ToSe  Tt  is  conceived  as  cTSoq  +  vXrjy  to  (tvi/oAov,  t6  ck  tovtwi/,  or 
ouo-ta  in  the  sense  of  substance,  adds  nothing  that  is  either 
real  or  intelligible  to  the  tlSos  to  cVov,  or  ovo-ta  in  the  sense 
of  essence.  For  vAiy  as  pure  potentiality  is  unreal  and  unin- 
telligible, and  so  are  the  individual  difference,  individual 

1  Phanomenologie  des  Geistes,  Werke,  II.  139. 


262 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  HEGEL 


263 


form,  individual  concept,  and  individual  definition,  which 
even  if  Aristotle  had  room  for  these,  could  Ijave,  as  Zeller 
shows,  no  ground  whatever  except  v\rj  alone  (§  78).    From 
these  rational  determinations,  which   Aristotle  strove  in 
vain  to  reconcile  either  with  themselves  or  with  the  facts 
of  experience,  resulted  the  principles  (1)  of  the  absolute 
conceptual   indifference   of  species  and  specimen  at  one 
time,  and  (2)  of  the  absolute  conceptual  identity,  or  in- 
variability, of  species  at  all  times :  principles  which  ruled 
the  philosophic  world,  and  even  the  scientific  world,  until 
the  advent  of  Darwin.     For  numerical  difference  alone,  by 
which  Aristotle  strove  to  differentiate  the  single  thing  as  a 
whole  (to  dpiOfi^  h)  from  other  single  things,  the  toSc  t4 
from  TttSc  Tivd,  is  empirical  merely,  not  rational,  an  affair  of 
ataOrfiTLSj  not  cTrtoTiJftiy,  and  SO  Contributes  nothing  to   the 
conceptual  content  of  the  universal  essence  (to  tl  ^v  cimt). 
In  other  words,  the  Aristotelian  Paradox  culminates  in  the 
principle  of  the  absolute  conceptual  indifference  of  the  in- 
dividual and  the  universal,  the  specimen  and  the  species, 
because   particulars    are   unknowable    (tci  Sk  ku^   cicaoToi/ 
direLpov  kol  ovk  iTna-Trp-ov) .     This  pr'nciple   never  found   a 
more  perfect  expression,  in  its  highest  and  most  important 
particular  application,  than  in  HegePs  doctrine  of  tlie  ab- 
solute conceptual  indifference  of  the  I  and  the  We.     This 
doctrine,  however,  is  in  the  highest  degree  paradoxical,  be- 
cause (1)  it  completely  suppresses  those  particulars  or  in- 
dividual differences  which  distinguish  one  I  from  another 
I,  and  both  from  the  We,  and  (2)  it  completely  suppresses 
that  universal  constitution  as  an  organism  of  persons  which 
distinguishes  the  We  from  every  I,  and  from  every  other 
organism.    Hence,  as  a  direct  outgrowth  of  the  Aristotelian 
Paradox,  it  may  be  fittingly  designated  as  the   Hegelian 
Paradox :   « Ich,  das   Wir,  und  Wir  das  Ich  ist,"     It  was 
certainly  never  outdone  in  epigrammatic  audacity  except  by 
the  kindred  political  paradox  of  Louis  XIV  :  "  L'^tat  c'est 
moL  " 

§  123.   It  is  true  that,  in  the  more  than  two  millenniums 


t 


between  Aristotle  and  Hegel,  the  concept-philosophy  which 
finds  all  truth  in  the  pure  concept  (Aoyos,  notio,  Begriff) 
passed  through   numerous  changes;  but  the  Aristotelian 
Paradox  which  is  its  life  survived  unchanged.     From  be- 
ginning to  end,  the  Greek  philosophy  was  realism,  uncriti- 
cal realism.     Plato's  "  idealism "  had  nothing  in  common 
with  what  passes  under  that  name  in  modern  times ;   his 
*'  ideas  "  (iSca,  aSos),  were  not  mere  thoughts  about  things, 
but  pure  universals  as  things  in  themselves,  the  only  real 
things,  the  only  realities,  and  Zeller  explicitly  and  correctly 
declares  that  Plato  "  deduced  from  the  Socratic  requirement 
of  conceptual  knowledge  a  system  of  the  most  pronounced 
realism    {ein    System    des    entschiedemten    Realismus) .'' '^ 
Aristotle's  "  forms,"  though  no  longer  "  separated "  from 
"semblances,"   were    still    Plato's    pure    universals,    still 
things  in  themselves,  real  objects  of  knowledge,  real  es- 
sences, and  not  mere  thoughts  about  essences ;  Zeller  cor- 
rectly interprets  him  as  teaching  that  "  the  object  of  the 
concept  is  the  substance,  and  indeed,  more  precisely,  the 
determined  substance  or  peculiar  essence  of  the   things; 
and  the  concept  itself  is  nothing  except  the  thought  of  this 
essence  {der  Gedanke  dieses  Wesens),''  2    ^nd  so  on  through- 
out the  whole  of   Greek  speculation,  even   including   the 
"Skepsis,"  Neo-Pythagoreanism,  and  Neo-Platonism.     It 
was  not  until  the  extravagance  of  mediaeval  realism  pro- 
voked the  reaction  of  extravagant  nominalism,  and  not  until 
this  had  sobered  down  into  the  doctrine  of  modern  con- 
ceptualism,  that  the  concept-philosophy  took  the  shape  of 
"  pure  a  priori  knowledge  "  in  Kant,  whose  fundamental 
tenet  is  that  "  things  in  themselves  are  unknowable  "  and 
that  we  "know  phaenomena  alone."     Yet,   as   has   been 
shown,  Kant  and  Fichte  adhere  to  the  Aristotelian  Paradox 
as  firmly  as  Aristotle  himself.     The  truth  is  that  the  con- 
cept-philosophy, whether  it  takes  the  form  of   uncritical 
realism  or  critical  idealism,  is  not  so  much  a  theory  of  the 

1  Die  Philosophie  der  Griechen,  II.  i.  296. 
«  Ihid.  11.  ii.  209. 


264 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


relation  of  the  concept  to  its  object  as  it  is  a  theory  of  the 
relation  of  units  and  universals  in  the  concept  as  such. 
In  other  words,  the  pith  and  core  of  the  concept-philosophy 
is  the  Aristotelian  Paradox  itself ;  and  Hegel,  as  the  origi- 
nator of  the  dialectic  of  the  pure  concept  and  the  undoubted 
perfecter  of  the  concept-philosophy,  which  since  his  day 
has  received  no  higher  scientific  development,  must  be  ex- 
pected to  be  no  less  stanch  an  adherent  of  the  Aristotelian 
Paradox  than  his  great  predecessors.  Is  this  expectation 
warranted? 

§  124.  There  can  be  no  doubt  on  the  subject.  The  Aris- 
totelian Paradox  rests  fundamentally  on  the  technical  dis- 
tinction between  "  inherence  "  and  "  subsumption :  "  the 
universal  inheres  in,  but  is  not  subsumed  under^  the  indi- 
vidual—  the  individual  is  subsumed  under,  but  does  not 
inhere  in,  the  universal.  Precisely  so  does  Hegel  explain 
the  matter,  and  precisely  so  does  he  apply  the  distinction 
throughout  his  entire  system.  The  abiding  problem  of 
Greek  philosophy,  indeed  of  all  philosophy,  was  the  mu- 
tual relation  of  the  One  and  the  Many,  and  its  profoundest 
answer  was  Aristotelianism,  of  which  the  Aristotelian  Par- 
adox was  the  heart ;  and  Hegel,  with  all  the  rich  gains  of 
more  than  two  thousand  years  of  added  thought,  could  not 
essentially  better  that  answer,  because  the  only  possible 
betterment  lay  in  discovery  of  the  knowableness  of  the 
individual  difference,  and  thereby  of  the  "thing  in  itself." 
This  discovery  was  not  possible  to  the  concept-philosophy, 
and  so  not  to  Hegel,  because,  despising  perception  and 
relying  on  conception  alone,  reines  Denken  necessarily 
found  the  individual  difference  and  the  "  thing  in  itself  " 
unknowable ;  the  utmost  that  Hegel  could  do  was  to  substi- 
tute for  the  unknown  "  thing  in  itself  "  the  known  "  phae- 
nomenon  in  itself,"  as  having  the  "ground  of  its  being"  in 
the  "  universal  Divine  Idea  "  —  a  position  which  he  distin- 
guished from  the  Kantian  "  subjective  idealism  "  as  his  own 
"  absolute  idealism."  ^     It  was  a  discovery  reserved  for  the 

1  Hegel,  Encyklopadie,  Werke,  VI.  97.    See  below,  §  192. 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  HEGEL 


265 


patient  genius  of  Darwin,  who,  after  Hegel's  death,  first 
conclusively  proved  the  derivation  and  variability  of  species 
through  the  "  advantageous  variation  "  or  individual  differ- 
ence of  the  specimen  or  isolated  group  of  specimens  as 
known  thing  in  itself.  But  let  Hegel  speak  for  himself,  as 
follows  (the  italics  are  all  his  own)  : 

§  125.  "  The  concept  contains  the  moments  of  individuality, 
particularity,  and  universality.  Individuality  is  the  negative  re- 
flection of  the  concept  into  itself,  by  which  something  is  in  and 
for  itself,  and  in  which  the  determinations  as  moments  inhere. 
Universality  is  the  positive,  not  exclusive,  unity  of  the  concept  with 
itself,  which  unity  contains  the  opposite  in  itself,  in  such  a  way 
that  the  unity  remains  at  the  same  time  indifferent  towards  it  and 
undetermined  by  it.  Particularity  is  the  reference  of  the  individ- 
uality and  the  universality  to  one  another.  It  is  the  universal 
reduced  to  a  determination;  or,  conversely,  the  individual  raised 
to  universality. 

**  The  universal  subsumes  or  comprehends  the  particular  and  in- 
dividual under  itself.  The  individual  has  the  same  and  at  the 
same  time  still  more  determinations  than  the  particular  and  uni- 
versal. The  same  relation  obtains  with  the  particular  in  respect 
to  the  universal.  What  holds  good  of  the  universal,  therefore, 
holds  good  of  the  i^articular  and  individual,  also  ;  and  what  holds 
good  of  the  particular  holds  good  of  the  individual;  but  not 
conversely. 

"The  universal  comprehends  the  particular  and  individual, 
just  as  the  particular,  also,  comprehends  the  individual,  under  itself; 
on  the  other  hand,  the  individual  comprehends  particularity  and 
universality,  and  the  particular  comprehends  universality,  in  itself 
The  universal  is  wider  than  particularity  and  individuality ;  on  the 
other  hand,  particularity  and  individuality  comprehends  more  in 
itself  than  the  universal,  which  becomes  again  a  determination 
through  the  fact  that  it  is  comprehended  in  individuality.  The 
universal  inheres  in  the  particular  and  individual;  on  the  other 
hand,  it  subsumes  the  particular  and  individual  under  itself."  i 

1  Hegel,  Propadeutik,  Werke,  XVIII.  116,  117,  124.  Cf.  Encyklo- 
padie, Werke,  VL  315  ff.  The  former  rather  than  the  latter  is  quoted 
above,  because,  as  a  compend  for  instruction ,  it  states  the  essential  ideas 
in  the  simplest  and  clearest  form  and  with  the  fewest  words,  yet  such  as 


266 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  HEGEL 


267 


§  126.  This  distinction  between  inherence  and  subsump- 
tion,  therefore,  which  Hegel  here  carefully  elaborates  and 
everywhere  applies  throughout  his  system,  is  absolutely 
essential  to  the  Aristotelian  Paradox.  The  universal,  as 
TO  cTSos  TO  €v6v  is  immanent  or  inherent  in  the  individual, 
or  ToSc  Tt,  because  it  is  the  only  real  and  only  intelligible 
element  within  the  individual  itself,  which,  as  individual, 
is  the  union,  to  (rvvoXov,  of  the  form  and  the  matter,  the 
€T8o9  and  the  vXrj.  Hence  the  principle  that  the  universal 
inheres  in  the  individual.  On  the  other  hand,  the  individ- 
ual, which  is  the  only  real  being,  or  ovo-ia  in  the  sense  of 
substance,  contains  not  only  the  universal  form,  cTSos  or 
ovo-ia  in  the  sense  of  essence,  but  also  the  matter,  or  vA?;, 
which  is  the  sole  ground  of  its  individuality  or  individual 
difference;  and  this  compound  of  form  and  matter,  to  ck 
TouTcor  or  dvvoXov,  which  of  course  cannot  possibly  inhere  as 
a  whole  in  merely  one  of  its  own  elements,  the  form  alone, 
can  only  be  classed  or  "  subsumed  "  under  the  form  as  one 
of  its  cases,  instances,  or  exemplars.  Hence  the  principle 
that  the  individual  is  subsumed  under  the  universal.  The 
combination  of  these  two  principles  gives  the  Aristotelian 
Paradox  as  Hegel  has  just  expounded  it:  the  universal 
inheres  iny  hut  is  not  subsumed  under,  the  individual ;  the 
individual  is  subsumed  under,  but  does  not  inhere  in,  the  uni- 

express  Hegel's  adhesion  to  the  Aristotelian  Paradox  with  a  plainness  that 
forbids  cavilling  dispute.  It  was  written  for  his  courses  in  the  Niirnberg 
Gymnasium  from  1808  to  1811  ;  and  Rosenkranz  says  (Vorrede,  XV)  that 
"  the  Logic  was  already  complete  in  1 808,  which  is  very  remarkable  in 
view  of  Hegel's  relation  to  Schelling."  Further,  Rosenkranz  expressly 
declares  that  '*  Hegel  remained  always  self-consistent  in  all  ground-deter- 
minations of  his  system."  Prof.  William  Wallace,  likewise,  referring  to 
the  Propddcutik,  says  that  "  Hegel  drew  it  up  with  great  care  and  many 
revisions."  (Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  XI.  615,  9th  ed.)  Its  authority 
as  to  Hegel's  opinions  is  unquestioned  by  any  competent  judge,  and  the 
passages  cited  above  agree  entirely  with  both  the  larger  and  the  smaller 
Logik.  Kuno  Fischer  says  expressly :  "  In  seiner  niirnberger  Propadeutik 
vertragen  sich  Logik  und  Religionslehre  sehr  wohl  miteinander  und  hangen 
genau  zusammen."  (Gcschichte  der  neuem  Philosophie,  Jubilaumsausgabo, 
VIII.  83.) 


versal.  A  rough  example  would  be :  the  apple-core  inheres 
in  the  apple,  but  is  not  subsumed  under  it,  while  the  apple 
does  not  inhere  in  the  apple-core,  but  is  subsumed  under  it. 
Or,  more  succinctly  still,  if  understood  as  meaning  the 
same  thing :  the  imiversal  has  greater  extensive  magnitude, 
and  the  individual  greater  intensive  magnitude  —  expres- 
sions which  Hegel  likewise  sanctions  and  employs.^ 

§  127.  Now  this  distinction  between  inherence  and  sub- 
sumption  is  totally  transformed  by  the  Law  of  Unit- 
Universals.  By  this  law,  the  whole  reality  of  the  individual 
includes  generic  -h  specific  -f-  reific  essence,  —  that  is,  not 
only  all  its  real  being  as  a  member  of  its  genus  and  spe- 
cies, all  that  it  has  in  common  with  its  fellow-members, 
but  also  all  the  real  being  which  it  does  not  share  with 
them,  but  which  is  its  own  peculiarity,  individuality,  indi- 
vidual difference,  as  a  thing  in  itself.  This  individual 
difference  is  its  reific  essence  —  what  makes  it  to  be  itself 
and  not  another  individual ;  and  it  includes,  not  only  what 
makes  it  to  be  itself  at  this  particular  moment,  but  also 
what  has  made  it  to  be  itself  from  the  beginning, —  its 
origin  and  total  evolution  as  a  unit  of  existence  in  a  uni- 
verse of  existences.  Into  its  true  reality  enters  the  whole 
series  of  those  miscalled  "  accidents  "  which  are  unintelli- 
gible in  their  isolation  alone,  but  which  are  perfectly  intel- 
ligible in  their  connectedness  and  concatenation  as  the 
elements  of  a  real  evolution ;  for  its  true  reality  is  its  total 
real  being  in  Time  as  well  as  in  Space. 

*  "Die  Grenze  des  Quantums  in  der  Form  des  Insichseins  giebt  die 
intensive  Grosse,  in  der  Form  der  Aeusserlichkeit  die  extensive  Grosse. 
Es  giebt  aber  nicht  ein  Intensives,  das  nicht  auch  die  Form  von  extensivem 
Dasein  hatte  und  umgekehrt."  (Werke,  XVIII.  98.)  That  is,  there  can 
be  neither  a  universal  without  its  individuals  nor  an  individual  without  its 
universal.  This  last  statement  holds  good  equally  by  the  Aristotelian 
Paradox  and  by  the  Law  of  Unit-Universals,  so  far  as  the  individual  differ- 
ence is  real,  but  it  is  nullified  by  the  former  so  far  as  the  individual 
difference  is  held  to  be  unintelligible.  This  is  the  fatal  error  of  reines 
Denken,  which  is  founded  on  the  assumption  that  Reason  can  survive  when 
separated  from  Experience. 


268 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PUILOSOPUY 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  HEGEL 


269 


If  this  total  real  being  of  the  <*  thing  in  itself,"  not  as  an 
enigmatical  toSc  ti  or  pseudo-individual,  which  is  unknow- 
able in  its  individuality  and  knowable  solely  through  its 
immanent  universality,  but  rather  as  a  real  unit-universal 
which    is    knowable    in    both    its    aspects,    though   never 
exhaustively   so   by  our  actual   powers  of  perception  and 
conception  (§  93),  had  been  understood  by  Aristotle  to  be 
the  only  real  object  of  scientific  knowledge,— and  if,  instead 
of  the  pure  concept,  the  percept-concept  had  been  under- 
stood to  be  the  only  real  fo)*m  of  scientific  knowledge, — 
the  whole  history  of  philosophy  would  have  to  be  rewritten. 
For  then  it  would  have  been  seen  that  the  individual  differ- 
ence is  essential  to  the  whole   reality  of   the  individual 
specimen,  and  that  the  whole  reality  of  all  its  individual 
specimens,   including    both  their    universality    and    their 
individuality,  is  essential  to  the  whole  reality  of  the  uni- 
versal species ;  that  the  whole  reality  of  all  the  species,  as 
higher  individuals,  is  essential  to  the  whole  reality  of  the 
universal  genus ;  and  so  on  to  the  genm  generum^  the  uni- 
verse as  a  unit.     In  other  words,  it  would  have  been  seen 
that  the  individual  inheres  wholly  in  the  unlvevsaly  but  the 
imiversal  inheres  onlt/ partlg  in  the  individwil  —  just  as  the 
leaf  inheres  wholly  in  the  tree,  but  the  tree  inheres  only 
partly  in  the  leaf. 

Under  this  principle  alone,  which  belongs  to  the  Apriori 
of  Being  or  ultimate  condition  of  existence,  and  for  that 
reason  to  the  Apriori  of  Thought  and  the  Apriori  of  Knowl- 
edge (§§  98,  99),  is  it  possible  to  explain  the  derivation  and 
the  variation  of  species.  The  Darwinian  revolution  in  the 
conception  of  the  species,  by  which  the  species  ceases  to 
consist  solely  of  the  sum  of  the  characters  common  to  all  the 
specimens  (to  ciSos  to  ivov),  real  nowhere  except  as  inherent 
within  the  larger  individualltg  of  each  specimen,  (rdSc  rt), 
and  consists,  instead,  of  all  the  specimens  themselves,  as 
grouped  and  linked  in  their  evolutional  reality,  and  there- 
fore as  inhere?it  in  the  species  itself  —this  revolution  is  an 
accomplished  fact,  final  and  irreversible.     But  it  necessi- 


tates a  deeper  and  wider  revolution  in  the  conception  of  the 
concept  itself  {Begrlff  des  Begriffs),  by  which  the  concept 
ceases  to  be  rational  universality  minus  empirical  individu- 
ality (reiner  Begriff,  Begrlff  ohne  Anschauung),  and  becomes 
rational  universality  plus  empirical  individuality,  percept- 
concept  of  the  unit-universal,  inseparable  and  mutually 
conditioning  union  of  Begrlff  2Lnd  Anschauung  in  every  real 
or  possible  cognition. 

But  this  is  complete  dissipation  of  the  dream  of  reines 
Denken,  complete  overthrow  of  the  Begriffsphilosophie,  com- 
plete abandonment  of  the  effort  to  separate  reason  and 
experience,  complete  establishment  of  their  inseparability 
or  necessary  identity  in  difference,  complete  abolition  of 
the  superstition  of  ^'pure  knowledge  apriori"  And  this 
deeper  and  wider  revolution  necessarily  follows  from  cor- 
rection of  the  Aristotelian  Paradox  in  its  doctrine  of  in- 
herenccy  as  just  explained.  The  truth  of  the  matter  will  be 
then  stated :  the  whole  universal  neither  inheres  in,  nor  is 
subsumed  under,  an  individual,  but  does  inhere  in  all  the 
individuals;  the  whole  individual  both  inheres  in,  and  is 
subsumed  under,  the  universal ;  the  whole  universal  has  both 
greater  extensive  and  greater  intensive  magnitude  than  the 
whole  individual.  But  it  still  remains  true,  and  as  impor- 
tant as  true,  that  the  universal  inheres  in  each  individual 
to  the  full  extent  that  the  individual  can  contain  it  ;  for  the 
total  extension  of  the  universal  is  the  total  extension  of  all 
its  units  taken  together,  while  the  total  intension  of  the 
universal  is  not  only  the  sum  of  the  intensions  of  all  its 
units,  but  also  its  own  intension,  transcending  all  these,  as 
their  universal  origin,  medium,  and  sphere  of  being.  It  is 
this  higher  intension  of  its  own  which  unifies  it  as  an  in- 
dividual of  a  higher  universal,  and  at  the  same  time  makes 
it  the  productive  source  of  new  individuals  within  itself. 
That  is,  just  as  every  cell  in  an  organism  is  completely  in- 
dividualized as  a  cell,  yet  lives  its  cell-life  from  and  within 
the  organism  alone,  while  the  organism  is  more  than  the 
mere  aggregate  of  its  cells,  and  lives  a  universal  yet  unitary 


270 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


life  of  its  own,  over  and  above  that  of  any  or  all  of  the  cells 
as  cells,  out  of  which  universal  life  the  life  of  all  these 
cells  proceeds ;  so,  in  general,  the  universal  and  its  units 
are  that  organic  union  of  the  One  and  the  Many  in  which, 
once  understood,  contradiction  ceases,  the  Aristotelian  Paxa^ 
dox  itself  is  evolved  into  the  Law  of  Unit-Universals,  and 
the  Greek  philosophy  solves  its  problem  in  scientific  or 
critical  realism. 

§  128.   To  the  superficial  student  who  is  misled  by  mere 
words,   it  may  seem   that  Hegel  carefully  shuns  Fichte's 
example  of  excluding  Individualitdt  from  Ichheit,  or  individ- 
uality from  the  pure  universal,  because  he  includes  it  as 
one  of  the  three  essential  moments  of  the  pure  notion  as 
such.     But  no  semblance  could  be  more  illusive.    Hegel 
is  too  great  a  thinker  not  to  respect  the  logical  necessities 
of  his  own  thought  in  a  matter  so  vital  to  his  system. 
When  he  tells  us  that  "  the  concept  contains  the  moments 
of  individuality,  particularity,  and  universality,"  it  would 
require  the  easy  credulity  of  the  sciolist  to  imagine  that  the 
"  individuality  "  which  Fichte  found  it  necessary  to  exclude 
from  his  Pure  I  would  be  admitted  by  Hegel  into  his  Pure 
Concept.     A  modicum  of  cautious  reflection  will  save  us 
from  so  gross  a  mistake.     HegePs  "  individuality "  is  by 
no    means    the    empirical    individuality  which   all    Pure 
Thought  as  such  is  bound  to  exclude,  aims  to  exclude,  and 
does  exclude  as  far  as  it  can  succeed  in  an  impossible  task. 
On  the  contrary,  it  is  that  mere  numcrieal  indhnduality, 
that  empty  arithmetical  unity  of  the  roSc  rt  as  r^  dpt^^aJ  cV, 
which  Aristotle  himself  had  to  recognize,  even  while  striving 
to  exclude  all  empirical  individualittj  as  the  "unknowable 
accidents  "  or  individual  difference.     So  much  individuality 
as  this  Hegel  was  likewise  compelled  to  recognize,  since 
without  it  universality  and  particularity  would  lose  all  con- 
ceptual content  whatever,  even  as  «  moments,"  and  the  Pure 
Concept  would  become  a  blank  vacuity  as  No  Concept. 
That  even  numerical  individuality  must  be  in  truth  empiri- 
cal (since  the  mere  unit  as  such  can  only  be  perceived,  not 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  HEGEL 


271 


understood),  is  what  neither  Aristotle  nor  Hegel  would 
admit,  and  we  waive  that  point  for  the  present,  in  order  to 
do  justice  to  their  doctrine  as  it  stands. 

The  individuality,  therefore,  which  Hegel  makes  one  of 
the  three  essential  moments  of  the  Pure  Concept,  is  not 
empirical  individuality  at  all,  but  pure  or  numerical  indi- 
viduahty  —  such  individuality  as  Aristotle  concedes  to  the 
T(J8€  Tt  as  merely  r^  dpt^/i<3  ^,  and  such  as  none  the  less  re- 
quires  suppression  of  the  empirical  individuality  as  un- 
knowable  <rvfxp,/3rjK6ra  in  the  r^  KaO'  lKa<Trov.  This  is  no 
mere  inference  or  surmise,  but  the  unmistakable  and  unde- 
niable meaning  of  Hegel  himself,  transparently  clear  to  all 
who  have  followed  the  discussion  thus  far,  as,  for  example, 
in  this  most  instructive  and  lucid  passage  :  — 

"  The  universal  of  the  concept  is  not  merely  a  something-in- 
common,  m  opposition  to  which  the  particular  subsists  independ- 
ently for  Itself,  but  rather  that  which  particularizes  (specifies) 
Itself,  and,  in  its  other,  abides  by  itself  in  undisturbed  clearness. 
It  18  of  tlie  highest  importance,  as  well  for  the  interests  of  science 
as  also  for  our  practical  conduct,  that  the  mere  soniething-iu- 
common  should  not  be  confounded  with  the  really  aU-common  the 
universal."  1  ' 

Two  things  are  worthy  of  special  attention  here. 

1.  HegePs  Begrlff  is  essentially  equivalent  to  Fichte's 
reines  /cA  —  pure  self-returning  and  self-determining  activ- 
ity, which  posits  within  itself  both  the  divisible  I  and  the 
divisible  Not-I.  But  Hegel  goes  into  the  matter  far  more 
deeply.  The  Begriff  is  not  a  mere  abstraction  of  thought, 
an  abstract  class  essence  set  over  against  the  particulars 

1  "Nun  aber  ist  das  AUgemeine  des  Begriffs  nicht  hloss  ein  Gemein- 
schaftliches,  welchem  gegenuber  das  Besondere  seinen  Bestand  fur  sich 
hat,  sondem  vielmehr  das  sich  selbst  Besoudernde  (Specificirende)  und  in 
seinem  Anderen,  in  ungetrubter  Klarheit  bei  sich  selbst  Bleibeude.  Es 
ist  von  der  grossten  Wichtigkeit,  sowohl  fur  das  Erkennen  als  auch  fur 
unser  praktisches  Verhalten,  dass  das  bloss  Gemeinschaftliche  nicht  mit 
dem  wahrhaft  AUgemeinen,  dem  Uuiversellen,  verwechselt  wird."  (En- 
cyklopadie,  Werke,  VL  321.) 


272 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


from  which  it  is  abstracted  and  which  in  no  degree  depend 
upon  it,  but  rather  the  original,  universal,  and  self-deter- 
mining activity  which  produces   them  out  of  itself,  par- 
ticularizes or  "specifies"  itself  in  them,  and  still  remains 
Itself,  entire,  unchanged,  and  unchangeable,  in  these  its 
others  as  merely  numerical  individuals.*      This  is  Aris- 
totle's essential  form  (cTSo?)  which  realizes  itself  out  of 
pure  potentiality  ({iXrj)  in  the  real  units  of  existence  (toSc 
Ti,  TO  ApiOfMi^  h),  in  which  it  still  remains,  entire,  unchanged, 
and  unchangeable,  as  the  universal  which  is  immanent  or 
inherent  in  the  individual  (t^  €?8o9  t^  cVoV).    Who  can  fail 
to  recognize  in  this  passage,  although  in  new  technical 
terms,  every  essential  feature  of  the  Aristotelian  Paradox, 
without  the  addition  of  a  single  really  new  feature  ? 

2.   Hegel's  das  Allgemeine  des  Begriffs^  or  pure  univer- 
sality as  a  moment  of  the  pure  concept,  is  "  that  which 
particularizes  or  specifies    itself    {das  sich  selhst   Beson- 
dernde,  Sj^ecificirende),  and,  in  its  other,  abides  by  itself  in 
undisturbed  clearness."     In  other  words,  it  is  the  self-deter- 
mining  species  as  a  universal,  which  multiplies  itself,  par- 
ticularizes or  evolves  the  many  out  of  itself  as  the'  one, 
projects  itself  out  of  itself  in  pure  numerical  otherness,  yet 
without  taking  on  a  single  new  conceptual  determination, 
and  so  remains  conceptually  identical  with  itself  in  all  its 
numerical  others,  namely,  its  multitudinous  specimens  as 
individuals.    Here,  then,  we  have,  in  all  its  length  and 
breadth  and  explicitness,  Aristotle's  general   doctrine  of 
pure  numerical  individuality,   or  the  conceptual  indiffer- 
ence of  the  species  and  the  specimen.     Hegel  is  so  con- 
scious of  this  that  he  himself  calls  attention  to  the  fact  by 
inserting  the  explanatory  Aristotelian  word  Specifieirende, 
with  its  manifest  allusion  to  the  specific  or  species-making 

1  -  Das  Einzelno  ist  dasselbe.  was  das  Wirkliche  ist,  nur  dass  jenes  aus 
dem  Legriffe  hervorgcf^^aiigen,  soniit  als  Allcrpnieines  als  die  negative  Iden- 
titat  mit  sich  fjesctzt  ist.  .  .  .  Jedes  Moment  des  Begriffs  ist  selbst  der 
^nze  Begnff,  aber  die  Einzelnheit,  das  Subjekt,  ist  der  als  Totalitat  gesetzte 
Begriir."    (Werkc,  VI.  320.) 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  HEGEL  273 

difference,  Sta<^opi  ci'Sottoio'?.    The  species,  out  of  itself  as 
Its  own  ^Xrj,  multiplies  or  particularizes  itself  in  its  own 
specimens,  but  remains,  nevertheless,  in  absolute  concep- 
tual Identity  or  self-equality  with  each  and  every  one  of 
them,  since  mere  numerical  difference  or  empty  individu- 
ality adds  no  conceptual  determination  of  any  sort  to  either 
species  or  specimen.     To  be  sure,  no  such  relation  obtains 
between  the  species  and  the  genus,  for  the  universal  as 
genus  multiplies  or  particularizes  itself  into  many  species 
but  does  not,  in  these  others,   "  abide  by  itself  in  undis-' 
turbed  clearness."    Quite  the  contrary:  it  makes  each  of 
these  species  a  real  other,  and  not  a  merely  numerical 
other,  by  adding  to  it  a  unique  specific  difference  which  is 
in  truth,  the  individual  difference  of  the  species  as  a  higher 
individual,  and  this  individualizing  difference  of  the  species 
destroys  utterly  the  conceptual  indifference  of  the  species 
and  the  genus.     Here  the  doctrine  gives  to  itself  a  self- 
destructive  scorpion-sting.    But  Hegel  could  not  rise  above 
the  mistakes  of  his  master,  or  see  that  the  only  way  really 
to.  specialize  the  species  or  to  individualize  the  individual 
is  through  a  real  and  intelligible  difference  -  empirical 
therefore,  and  not  merely  numerical ;  in  other  words,  that 
his  supposedly  pure  numerical  difference  is  either  empir- 
ical difference  or  else  no  difference  at  all.    It  required 
the  unconscious  but  potent  aid  of  a  Darwin  to  reform  the 
Aristotelian  Paradox  by  vindicating  the  reality  and  the 
scientific  intelligibility  of  the  empirical  individual  differ- 
ence.    Meanwhile  it  remains  clear  as  noonday  that  the 
Aristotelian  Paradox,  with  its  principle  of  the  conceptual 
indifference  of  the  species  and  the  specimen,  ^  is  the  only 
possible  ground  of  the  conceptual  indifference  of  the  We 

1  "Die  FVWcTi  sind  aber  das  Eine  was  das  Andere  ist,  jedes  ist  Eins 
Oder  auch  Eins  der  Vielen  ;  sie  sind  daher  eins  und  dasselbe."  (Encyklo- 
padie.  Werke,  VL  19a  (y.  Prop.  Werke,  XVIIL  97.)  It  would  be  diffi- 
cu  t  to  express  more  tersely  the  Aristotelian  principle  of  merely  numerical 
individuality,  with  its  suppression  of  the  individual  difference  and  em- 
pmcal  individuaUty,  and  the  resultant  identity  of  every  specimen  with 

VOL.  I.  — 18 


274 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


and  the  I  --  that  is,  of  the  Hegelian  Paradox,  "  Ich,  das 
Wir,  %ind  Wir  das  Ich  isV^  ^ 

In  this  bold  doctrine,  however,  the  Begriffsphilosophie 
at  the  same  time  completes  itself  and  destroys  itself.  By 
suppressing  the  empirical  individual  difference  and  all 
empirical  individuality,  by  construing  the  individuality 
which  it  retains  as  no  more  than  numerical  or  mathemat- 
ical, and  by  thus  alone  identifying  the  species  and  the 
specimen  conceptually,  it  falsifies  the  Begriff  as  a  whole 
because  it  falsifies  one  of  its  three  essential  moments,  and 
through  this  the  other  two  as  well.  It  thus  ends  in  a  false 
concept,  and  a  false  concept  of  the  concept  {Begriff  des 
Begrlffsy  die  an  imd  fur  sich  seyende  und  hiermit  absolute 
Idee,  die  Idee  sich  selbst  gegenstandlich).  No  wonder  that 
Hegel,  having  begun  with  the  Aristotelian  Paradox,  should 
frankly  avow  his  final  result  as  identical  with  Aristotle's 
(subject,  therefore,  to  Zeller's  criticisms  of  Aristotle  in 
§  §  74-77)  :  "  This  is  the  voV^s  v^ti^  which  Aristotle  has 
already  designated  as  the  highest  form  of  the  Idea/'« 
But  the  vo-,)CTi%  roTjo-cws  or  Begriff  des  Begriffs  which  thus 
mutilates  the  individual  by  recognizing  in  it,  as  knowable 
or  conceptual,  no  other  individuality  than  that  of  an  empty 
arithmetical  unit  {rh  dpcOfji^  ?v),  and  which  thus  incapaci- 
tates itself  for  understanding  either  the  particular  or  the 
universal,  cannot  possibly  stand  the  test  of  examination  as 

every  other  specimen  and  with  the  species  itself,  so  far  as  conceptual  con- 
tent ,s  concerned  But  nothing  could  be  more  untrue  to  the  philosophy 
and  the  science  which  recognize  the  individual  difference  as  both  real  and 
knowable.  To  Darwin  it  would  be  simply  absurd.  Hegel  is  dealing  with 
the  One  and  the  Many  in  the  pure  category  of  number,  and  what  he  says 
holds  good  m  the  abstractness  of  pure  mathematics  or  "pure  thought  " 
but  It  IS  worse  than  futile,  because  fatally  misleading,  in  dealing  with  the 
organic  relations  of  genus,  species,  and  specimen,  of  universality,  particu- 
larity, and  individuality,  in  the  world  of  real  existence. 

1  "Das  'Ich*  des  Philosophen  ist  erst  eine  Folge  von  dem  'Wir*  des 
Biologen."    (Rudolph  Virchow,  Vier  Reden  iiber  Leben  und  Kranksein, 

2  Encyklopadie,  Werke.  VI.  408. 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  HEGEL 


275 


a  scientific  theory  of  universals.  For  it  absolutely  requires 
the  separation  of  reason  and  experience,  as  the  necessary 
condition  of  scientific  cognition  (iinoTrjfAT)^  reines  Denken)  ; 
whereas  all  scientific  cognition  involves  their  necessary 
identity  in  difference.  This  is  the  capital  and  incurable 
defect  of  the  concept-philosophy  as  a  mode  of  thinking, 
and  it  reveals  itself  in  every  movement  and  every  provi- 
sional result  of  the  dialectic  method,  no  less  than  in  its 
final  outcome  as  the  absolute  conceptual  indifference  of 
the  I  and  the  We.  For  the  success  of  any  philosophy 
must  lie  in  the  successful  integration  and  differentia- 
tion of  these  two  in  a  self-harmonious  concept  of  the  Real 
I  in  the  Real  We  in  the  Real  World  as  Absolute  /  (§§  G7- 
73,  98).  ^ 

§  129.  In  what  has  preceded,  we  have  shown  that  the 
conceptual  indifference  of  the  I  and  the  We  is  merely  one 
applicaijion  of  the  broad  principle  of  the  conceptual  indif- 
ference of  the  specimen  and  the  species :  in  other  words, 
that  the  Hegelian  Paradox  is  merely  a  necessary  conse- 
quence of  the  Aristotelian  Paradox,  as  its  source  and 
ground.  Here  we  might  leave  it  to  stand  or  fall  with  the 
latter,  confiding  in  the  strength  of  the  reasons  already 
given  for  reforming  the  Aristotelian  Paradox  as  a  general 
theory  of  universals  through  recognition  of  the  knowable- 
ness  of  the  individual  difference,  and  for  developing  that 
time-honored  theory  into  a  truer  form  as  the  Law  of  Unit- 
UniVersals.  But  such  a  course  would  not  only  be  unjust 
to  Hegel,  whose  fuller  position  deserves  to  be  stated,  but 
would  also  leave  in  our  rear  difficulties  which  it  would  be 
foolish  to  underrate.  Hegel's  attitude  towards  personality 
and  personal  identity  demands  profound  attention,  and  we 
go  on  to  examine  his  chief  statements  respecting  the  nature 
of  the  I  and  the  rational  transition  from  the  I  to  the 
We.  We  translate  first  from  the  Projmdeutik  because 
it  gives  with  great  fidelity,  but  in  small  compass,  the  sub- 
stance of  the  long  argument  of  the  Phanomenologie  des 
Oeistes, 


276 


>l 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


§  130.  «  The  I  iiituites  itself  as  self-consciousness,  and  the  ex- 
pression of  it  in  its  purity  is  I  r=  I,  or,  I  am  I.i 

"This  proposition  of  self-consciousness  is  pmpty  of  content. 
The  impulse  of  the  self-consciousness  consists  in  realizing  its  own 
concept  and  giving  to  itself  the  consciousness  of  itself  in  every- 
thing. It  is  active,  therefore,  (1)  in  cancelling  the  otherness 
of  objects  of  experience  [das  Anderssein  der  Gegenstdnde]  and 
positing  them  as  equal  to  itself,  and  (2)  in  alienating  itself  from 
itself  and  in  that  way  giving  itself  objectivity  and  existence.* 
Both  are  one  and  the  same  activity.  The  becoming-determined 
[Bestimmtwerden]  of  the  self -consciousness  is  at  the  same  time  its 
self-determining  [Selbstbestimmen],  and  conversely.  It  produces 
itself  as  object  of  experience. 

"In  its  formation  or  movement  the  self-consciousness  has  the 
three  stages :  (1)  of  desire,  in  so  far  as  it  is  directed  to  other 
things  ;  (2)  of  the  relation  of  mastership  and  servantship,  in  so 
far  as  it  is  directed  to  another  self-consciousness  which  is  unequal 
to  it;  (3)  of  the  universal  self-consciousness  which  knows  itself 
in  other  self-consciousnesses,  equal  to  them  as  they  are  equal  to  it. 

"Both  sides  of  the  self-consciousness,  the  positing  and  the 
cancelling,  are  therefore  immediately  united  with  each  other.  The 
self -consciousness  posits  itself  through  negation  of  the  otherness,  and 
is  practical  consciousness.  When,  therefore,  in  the  consciousness 
proper,  which  is  also  called  the  theoretical,  the  determinations  of  it 
and  of  the  object  change  in  themselves,  this  happens  now  through 
the  activity  of  the  consciousness  itself,  and  for  it.  It  is  conscious 
to  itself  that  this  cancelling  activity  belongs  to  it.  In  the  con- 
cept of  self-consciousness  lies  the  determination  of  the  not  yet 
realized  [purely  arithmetical]  difference.  In  so  far  as  this  difference 
becomes  distinct  in  it,  it  has  the  feeling  of  an  other-being  or  other- 
ness in  itself,  of  a  negation  of  itself,  or  the  feeling  of  a  want, 
a  need. 

"  This  feeling  of  its  otherness  contradicts  its  equality  with 
itself.  The/€//  necessity  of  cancelling  this  opposition  is  the  impulse. 
The  negation  or  the  otliemess  presents  itself  to  it  as  a  thing  which 

1  Compare  Fichte's  —  *' Ich  bin  diese  Anschauung  und  snhlechthin 
nichts  weiter,  und  diese  Anschauung  selbst  ist  Ich  "  (Werko,  I.  629), 
and  — "das  schlechthin  gesetzte  X  lasst  sich  auch  so  ausdriicken  :  /cA  = 
Ich;  Ich  bin  Ich "(L  94). 

a  Compare  Fichte's—  *'  Ich  setze  im  Ich  dem  theilbaren  Icli  ein  theil. 
bares  Nicht-Ich  entgegen.'*    (Werke,  I.  110.) 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  HEGEL 


277 


is  external  and  different  from  it,  but  which  is  determined  by  the 
self-consciousness  (1)  as  a  something  consonant  to  the  impulse, 
and  (2)  as  a  something  negative  in  itself  whose  existence  is  to  be 
cancelled  by  the  self  and  posited  in  equality  with  it. 

"  The  activity  of  desire,  therefore,  cancels  the  otherness  of  the 
object,  'its  existence  in  general,  and  unites  it  with  the  subject, 
whereby  the  desire  is  gratified.  This  is  accordingly  conditioned 
(1)  through  an  external  object  which  subsists  as  its  equivalent,  or 
through  the  consciousness ;  (2)  its  activity  produces  the  gratifica- 
tion only  through  cancellation  of  the  object.  The  self-conscious- 
ness derives  thence  its  self  feeling  alone. 

"  In  desire  the  self-consciousness  is  related  to  itself  as  individual. 
It  refers  to  a  selfless  [selbstlosen]  object,  which  in  and  for  itself  is 
another  than  the  self-consciousness.  The  latter  attains,  therefore, 
to  its  self-equality  with  regard  to  the  object  solely  through  can- 
cellation of  it.  Desire  is  in  general  (1)  destructive;  (2)  in  the 
satisfaction  of  it,  therefore,  the  result  is  only  the  self-feeling  of  the 
subject's  existence  for  itself  as  individual,  the  undetermined  con- 
cept of  the  subject  combined  with  objectivity. 

*'  The  concept  of  the  self -consciousness,  as  a  subject  which  is 
at  the  same  time  objective,  gives  the  relation  that  for  the  self- 
consciousness  another  self -consciousness  exists. 

"  A  self-consciousness  which  is  for  another  is  not  as  mere  object 
for  it,  but  as  its  other  self.  *  I '  is  no  abstract  universality  in 
which,  as  such,  there  is  no  difference  or  determination.  When  '  I,' 
therefore,  is  object  to  the  I,  it  is  to  it,  on  this  side,  as  the  same 
which  it  is.     It  intuites  itself  in  the  other. 

"  This  self-intuition  of  the  one  in  the  other  is  (1)  the  abstract 
moment  of  sameness.  (2)  But  each  has  also  the  determination 
that  it  appears  for  the  other  as  an  external  object,  and  in  so  far 
immediate,  sensuous,  and  concrete  existence.  (3)  Each  is  abso- 
lutely for  itself  and  individual  towards  the  other,  and  demands 
also  to  be  as  such  for  the  other,  and  to  be  taken  at  its  worth 
accordingly  —to  intuite  its  own  freedom  as  a  subject  which  is  for 
itself  in  the  other,  or  to  be  acknowledged  by  it. 

"  In  order  to  establish  its  own  worth  and  be  acknowledged  as 
free,  the  self-consciousness  must  exhibit  itself  for  another  as  free 
from  the  natural  existence.  This  moment  is  as  necessary  as  the 
freedom  of  the  self-consciousness  in  itself.  The  absolute  equality 
of  the  I  with  itself  is  not  essentially  an  immediate  equality,  but 
such  as  accomplishes  itself  through  annulment  of  the  sensuous 


278 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  HEGEL 


279 


immediacy,  and  thereby  establishes  itself  for  another,  also,  as  free 
and  independent  from  the  sensuous.  Thus  it  shows  itself  to  be  in 
agreement  with  its  concept,  and  must  be  acknowledged  because  it 
gives  to  the  I  reality." 

[Here  we  omit  some  sections  which  relate  to  the  doctrine 
of  mastership  and  servantship,  but  not  to  the  matter  in 
hand.] 

"  The  universal  self-consciousness  is  the  intuition  of  itself,  not 
as  a  self  which  is  particular  and  different  from  others,  but  as  the 
self  which  exists  in  itself  and  is  universal.  Thus  it  recognizes  in 
itself  both  itself  and  the  other  self-consciousnesses,  and  is  recog- 
nized by  them. 

"  According  to  this  its  essential  universality,  the  self-conscious- 
ness is  real  only  in  so  far  as  it  knows  its  reflection  in  others  (I 
know  that  others  know  me  as  themselves),  and  as  pure  spiritual 

universality  belonging  to  the  family,  the  fatherland,  and  so  forth, 

knows  itself  as  essential  self.  (This  self-consciousness  is  the  foun- 
dation of  all  virtues,  of  love,  honor,  friendship,  valor,  all  sacrifice, 
all  fame,  and  so  forth.)" 

§  131.  However  different  may  be  the  form  of  expression, 
Hegel's  theory  of  the  I  and  the  We  is  in  ail  essential  deter- 
minations identical  with  Fichte's,  as  plainly  appears  in  the 
foregoing  statements.  His  "universal  self-consciousness," 
or  Pure  I,  is  the  self-returning  and  self-determining  activity 
of  pure  "  self -intuition,"  empty  of  all  content,  of  all  partic- 
ularity or  manifoldness,  of  all  difference  from  others,  the 
"  universal  self  "  which  exists  in  and  for  itself  as  "  essen- 
tial self  "  (to  ctSos  TO  €v6v  in  6  tU  avOporTro^,  the  vovs)  ;  it  con- 
tains no  principle  of  plurality  or  individuation  other  than 
that  of  mere  number  or  pure  arithmetical  unity  (to  apiOfnZ  cv), 
and  even  for  this  there  is  no  more  rational  ground  than  is 
to  be  found  in  Aristotle.  Nay,  the  "  universal  self-con- 
sciousness "  does  not  become  "  real  "  at  aU,  even  as  a  bare 
arithmetical  unit,  until  it  "  knows  its  reflection  in  another ; " 
that  is,  until  it  has  become  an  empirical  consciousness  in 
"  the  family,  the  fatherland,  and  so  forth."    In  other  words, 


just   as    Aristotle    denied  reality   to   Plato's    ideas   when 
separated  from  their  appearances  in  single  things,  yet  con- 
ceded reality  to  single  things  themselves  solely  in  virtue  of 
the  idea  or  essential  universal  inherent  in  them  as  individ- 
uals,—  just  as  Fichte  denied  reality  or  self-consciousness 
to  the  Pure   I,  until   it  had  "  constructed  itself "  in  the 
"  philosopher  as  such  "  or  the  empirical  individual  in  gen- 
eral, yet  conceded  reality  to  the  individual  himself  solely 
in  virtue  of  the  abiding  Ich-helt  immanent  in  his  vanishing 
IndividuaHtdf,  —  precisely  so  does  Hegel  deny  reality  to  the 
"self-consciousness  according  to  this  its  essential  univer- 
sality "  until  it  "appears  for  the  other  as  an  external  object, 
and  in  so  far  immediate,  sensuous,  and  concrete  existence," 
yet   concede   reality   to   this    "  self-consciousness   for   the 
other "  only  in  so  far  as,  while  still  immanent  in  this  ex- 
ternal object,  it  "  exhibits  itself  for  an  other  as  free  from 
the  natural  existence  "  —  as  "  free  and  independent  of  the 
sensuous."     Thus  for  Hegel,  no  less  than  for  Fichte,  the 
Pure  I  in  its  purity  is  not  a  real  self-consciousness  at  all, 
—  is  in  itself  and  for  itself  alone  unreal  and  unconscious,  — 
is  in  truth  not  a  Pure  I,  but  a  Pure  It  (§  117) ;  a  Pure 
It,  moreover,  which  can  become  a  E-eal  I  solely  as  an  Em- 
pirical I  (§  118),  and  which  loses  all  its  reality  and  relapses 
once  more  into  a  Pure  It,  when  reines  Denken  separates 
reason  and  experience,  suppresses  the  empirical  individual 
difference,  cancels  the  individual  as  such,  and  again  resolves 
the  "  universal  self-consciousness  "  into  a  real  unconscious- 
ness, 

§  132.  In  the  first  three  paragraphs  translated  above  in 
§  130,  a  keen  eye  will  easily  detect  the  essential  features  of 
Ficlite's  theory  of  the  "  transference  "  of  self-consciousness, 
as  developed  out  of  Kant's  original  hint  and  as  criticised 
in  the  last  chapter.  Hegel  holds  that  the  self-consciousness 
is  impelled  to  realize  its  own  conceptual  essence  in  the 
form  of  externality,  and  to  renew  or  duplicate  itself  in 
every  such  external  form,  whether  in  that  of  "  the  other " 
as  "  object "  (Fichte*s  das  Es  as  das  Object  uberhatipt)  or  in 


280 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


that  of  "  the  other  "  as  "  self -consciousness  "  (Fichte's  das 
Ich  iiberhaupt,  d.  h.  das  Nicht- Object).  In  either  case,  the 
subject  "produces"  its  "other"  out  of  itself,  and  neces- 
sarily encounters  the  impossibility  of  "transferring"  its 
own  self-consciousness,  as  already  explained  (§§  102,  120).^ 
To  the  It,  or  mere  object,  the  subject  attributes  its  own 
"  thought,  reflection,  or  form,"  as  the  object's  only  true 
essence  or  "inwardness;"  it  thus  alienates  itself  from  it- 
self, cancels  the  object's  otherness  or  "  other-being,"  equates 
it  with  itself,  and  makes  itself  thereby  an  objective  reality, 
either  as  a  thoughUhing  or  as  another  self,  the  Thou.  To 
this  Thou,  Other-I,  or  conscious  object,  the  subject  attrib- 
utes  a  real  relationship  to  itself,  whether  as  unequal 
(master  or  servant)  or  as  equal  (pure  unit  of  universal  self- 
consciousness).  But  the  whole  of  this  activity,  whether 
positing  or  cancelling,  is  only  an  elaborate  and  complicated 
"  transferring ;  "  it  happens  within  the  pure  subject  itself, 

1  "Das  Inruire  der  Dinge  ist  der  Gedanke  oder  Begriff  derselben. 
Indem  das  Bewusstsein  das  Innere  zum  Gegenstando  hat,  hat  es  deii 
Gedanken  odev  eben  so  sehr  seine  eigeue   Reflexion  oder  Form,  somit 
iiberhaupt  sich  zum  Gegenstande.  ...  Der  Trieb  des  Selbstbewusstseins 
besteht  darin,  seinen  Begriff"  zu  reaUsiren  und  in  AUera  sich  das  Bewusst- 
sein  seiner  zu  geben.   .  .   .  Es  bringt  sich  selbst  als  Gegenstand  hervor  " 
(Werke,  XVIIL  84.)    These  last  words  of  Hegel  are  a  manifest  equivalent 
m  idea  to  Fichte's  :  "  Auf  etwas,  das  in  diesem  ersten  Setzen  als  ein  Es, 
als  blosses  Object,  als  etwas  ausser  uns  gesetzt  worden,  wird  der  in  uns 
selbst  gewordene  Begriff  der  Ichheit  ubertragen,  nnd  damit  synthetisch 
veremigt ;  und  durch  diese  bedingte  Synthesis  erst  entsteht  uns  ein  Du 
Der  Begiiff  des  Du  entsteht  aus  der  Vereinigung  des  Es  und  des  Ich." 
(Werke,  I.  502.)    For  the  subject  can  ^^  give  itself  consciousness  of  itself 
in  everything  "  solely  by  some  mode  of  -  transference  "  of  that  conscious- 
ness.     In  the  Phanomenologie,  Werke,  II.  131-140,  Hegel  explains  dia- 
lectically  the  mode  of  this  "  transference  "  in  a  way  i>eculiarly  his  own, 
but  not  in  a  way  to  remove  the  impossibility  of  it.     If  the  subject  "pro- 
duces itself  as  object,"  it  matters  not  whether  that  object  is  an  It  or  an  I  • 
for  self-consciousness  is  absolutely  and  forever  non-transferable,  and  can 
only  be  evolved  in  a  new  unit  of  existence  through  the  generic  unity  of 
apperception.     The  I  producing  and  the  I  produced  can  only  be  one  and 
the  same  I,  as  Fichte  saw  and  admitted.    A  new  I  can  originate  in  the  We 
alone. 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  HEGEL 


281 


and  for  itself;  it  cannot  transcend  the  subject;  it  is 
nothing  but  the  motion  of  the  Ber/riffas  pure  self-determi- 
nation in  the  sphere  of  pure  thought,  and  is  no  warrant  what- 
ever for  considering  this  strictly  subjective  dialectical 
process  as  capable  of  establishing  valid  distinctions  of  any 
sort  in  the  carefully  excluded  sphere  of  empirical  reality. 
The  triadic  dialectic  movement  is  all  within  the  universal 
self-consciousness  as  such,  and  has  nothing  to  do  with  a 
plurality  of  empirical  units,  whether  unconsciousnesses  or 
other  self-consciousnesses.  When  it  comes  to  that,  Hegel  is 
as  impotent  as  Fichte.  If  he  is  bent  on  recognizing  the 
empirical  plurality  of  I*s  as  the  We,  he  can  only  murmur 
something  about  the  pure  subject's  "  realizing  its  own  coni 
cept  and  giving  itself  consciousness  of  itself  in  everything." 
But  that  is  a  mere  euphuism  for  the  fantastic  doctrine  of 
"  transference,"  which  needs  no  further  discussion.  HegePg 
Thou,  like  Fichte's,  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  a  marion- 
ette, and  his  We  remains  still  undifferentiated  from  his  I : 
"JcA,  das  Wir^  und  Wir  das  Ich  1st.*' 

§  133.  It  is  all  in  vain  that,  out  of  an  evident  discon- 
tent with  this  Kantian-Fichtian  theory  of  "  transference," 
Hegel  seeks  to  find  some  ground  of  real  plurality  of  self- 
consciousnesses  in  the  pure  concept  of  self -consciousness  as 
such.  He  has  expressed  this  concept  in  the  first  sentence 
of  the  passage  quoted:  "The  I  intuites  itself  as  self- 
consciousness,  and  the  expression  of  it  in  its  purity  is, 
1  =  1,  or,  I  am  I."  Later,  he  says :  "  In  the  concept  of  self- 
consciousness  lies  the  determination  of  the  not  yet  realized 
difference.  In  so  far  as  this  difference  becomes  distinct  in 
it,  it  has  the  feeling  of  an  other-being  or  otherness  in  itself, 
of  a  negation  of  itself,  or  the  feeling  of  a  want,  a  7ieedJ^ 
Is  this  true  ?  Does  Hegel  derive  these  elements  of  "  feel- 
ing "(Gefilhl),  "  want "  (Mangel),  "  need  "  (Bedurfniss),  and, 
as  he  goes  on  to  say,  "  desire  "  (Ber/ierde)  and  its  "  gratifi- 
cation "  {Befriedigung),  from  the  pure  concept  in  its  purity 
^s  lam  I?  Or  rather  must  he  derive  them  from  that  mere 
empirical  individuality,  that  impure  element  of  mere  indi- 


282 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


vidual  experience  as  such,  which  the  pure  concept  rigor- 
ously excludes^  Hegel  finds  himself  helpless  in  carrying 
out  his  dialectical  development  of  the  pure  self-conscious- 
ness without  introducing  into  it  these  elements  of  the 
empirical  consciousness  —  "feeling,"  "want,"  "need," 
"desire,"  "gratification,"  and  so  on;  and  it  is  futile  to 
claim  that  these  empirical  elements  lie  already  in  the  pure 
concept  as  the  "  not  yet  realized  difference."  If  the  differ- 
ence involves  these  empirical  elements,  it  cannot  be  itself 
involved  in  the  pure  concept.  One  cannot  have  his  cake, 
and  eat  it  too,  —  not  even  in  reines  Denken,  "  Desire  " 
and  its  "  gratification  "  are  no  grounds  of  pure  thought,  no 
grounds  on  which  to  rest  the  deduction  of  a  plurality  of 
self-consciousnesses  in  a  system  which  professes  to  unfold 
the  purely  dialectical  self-evolution  of  the  pure  concept. 
The  bare  "  I  am  I "  cannot  contain  or  involve  the  Other-I, 
the  Thou,  the  We,  even  as  a  "  not  yet  realized  difference." 
Nor  is  Hegel's  other  attempt  more  successful.  "  The 
concept  of  the  self-consciousness,"  he  says,  "  as  a  subject 
which  is  at  the  same  time  objective,  gives  the  relation  that 
for  the  self-consciousness  another  self-consciousness  exists." 
This  assertion  is  quite  too  bold.  As  Fichte  proved  (§  108), 
Kant's  separation  of  the  subject  and  object  in  self-con- 
sciousness is  unthinkable ;  they  are  inseparable  as  subject- 
object.  The  very  essence  of  self-consciousness  is  the  identity 
in  difference  of  subject  and  object ;  it  is  subject-object,  or 
nothing  at  all.  But  the  reality  of  one  subject-object  does 
not  give  the  independent  reality  of  another  subject-object, 
except  in  and  through  the  We  as  their  common  universal 
(generic  unity  of  apperception).  HegePs  statement  is  sur- 
prisingly sophistical.  The  "  concept  of  self-consciousness  " 
is  that  of  "  a  subject  which  is  at  the  same  time  objective  " 

—  objective  to  itself  alone  ;  it  is  not,  as  Hegel  here  employs 
it,  that  of  "  a  subject  which  is  at  the  same  time  objective  " 

—  objective  to  another.  Neither  does  it  nor  can  it  "  give  the 
relation  that  for  the  self-conciousness  another  self-con- 
sciousness exists,"  unless  it  is  logical  to  argue  that,  because 


THE  TRANSITION  IN   HEGEL 


283 


"  A  exists,"  therefore  "  B  exists  "  —  which  is  the  impossible 
inference  from  particular  to  particular.  How  Hegel  could 
have  fallen  into  such  an  error  as  to  find  a  plurality  of  sub- 
jects involved  in  "  a  subject  which  is  objective "  to  itself 
alone,  is  not  to  be  explained,  in  view  of  Kant's  explicit 
warning  against  it  on  merely  logical  grounds  :  "  That  the  I 
of  apperception  (for  that  reason  in  every  act  of  thought)  is 
a  singular^  which  cannot  be  resolved  into  a  plurality  of  sub- 
jects, and  therefore  denotes  a  logically  simple  subject,  lies 
already  in  the  concept  of  thinking  [/.  e.  *  ich  dcnke '],  and  is, 
therefore,  an  analytical  proposition."  ^  It  is  an  error  which 
is  not  in  the  least  explained,  but  only  deepened,  by  HegePs 
fuller  exposition  of  his  doctrine  in  the  Phdnomenologie,  as 
follows  (we  preserve  his  own  italics)  :  — 

§  134.  "  In  life,  which  is  the  object  of  the  desire,  the  negation 
is  either  in  an  other^  namely,  in  the  desire,  or  as  determinateneas  in 
comparison  with  another  equivalent  form,  or  as  its  inorganic  uni- 
versal nature.  This  universal  independent  nature,  in  wliich  the 
nej;ation  is  as  absolute,  is  the  speoies  (Gattung)  as  such,  or  as  self- 
conseiousness.  The  self-consciousness  attains  its  satisfaction  only  in 
another  self  consciousness. 

"The  conce|3t  of  self-consciousness  is  first  perfected  in  these 
three  moments:  (a)  pure  indifferentiated  I  is  its  first  immediate 
object.  (6)  This  immediacy,  however,  is  itself  absolute  media- 
tion; it  is  only  a6  annulment  of  the  independent  object,  or  it  is 
desire.  The  satisfaction  of  the  desire  is,  indeed,  the  reflection  of 
the  self-consciousness  into  itself,  or  the  self-certainty  developed 
(gewordejie)  into  truth,  (c)  But  the  truth  of  the  same  is  rather 
the  doubled  reflection,  the  reduplication  of  the  self-consciousness. 
It  is  for  the  consciousness  an  object  which  posits  in  itself  its  other- 
being  or  the  difference  as  an  invalid  one,  and  in  this  [procedure] 
is  independent.  In  the  process  of  life  itself,  indeed,  the  differen- 
tiated merely  lirimj  form  animls  its  own  independence,  too,  but 
ceases  with  its  difference  to  be  what  it  is.;  the  object  of  the  self- 
consciousness,  however,  is  equally  independent  in  this  nej^ativity 
of  itself,  and  by  that  it  is  for  itself  species,  universal  fluidity  in 
the  particularity  of  its  separation  —  it  is  living  self-consciousness. 

»  Kr.  d.  r.  Vem.,  Werke,  III.  278. 


284 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHr 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  HEGEL 


285 


"  A  self-consciousness   is  for  a  self -consciousness.     First  by  this 
[relation]  does  it  in  fact  exist;  for  first  in  this  there  becomes  for 
it  the  unity  of  itself  in  its  other-being  j  /,  which  is  the  object  of 
its  concept,  is  in  fact  not  object ;  the  object  of  desiie,  however,  is 
only  independent,  for  it  is  the  universal  indestructible  substance, 
the  fluid  self-equal  essence.    Since  a  self-consciousness  is  the  object, 
it  is  just  as  much  I  as  object.     With  this,  the  concept  of  the  spirit 
is  already  present  for  us.     What  further  becomes  for  the  conscious- 
ness is  the  experience  what  the  spirit  is,  this  absolute  substance 
which,  in  the  perfect  freedom  and  independence  of  its  antithesis, 
namely,  of  diverse  self-consciousnesses  existing  for  themselves,  is 
their  unity :  the  /  is  the  We,  and  the  We  is  the  /.     First  in  the 
self-consciousness,  as  the  concept  of  the  spirit,  has  the  conscious- 
ness its  turning-point,  at  which,  out  of  the  colored  show  of  the 
sensuous  Here  and  out  of  the  empty  night  of  tlie  supersensuous 
Beyond,  it  advances  into  the  spiritual  day  of  the  present."  ^ 

§  135.  In  this  passage  lies  Hegel's  attempt  at  a  rational 
transition  from  the  I  to  the  We,  through  the  dialectical 
self-evolution  of  the  "concept  of  self-consciousness,"  the 
BegHffoi  the  reines  Ich.  He  here  states  its  three  essential 
"moments,"  that  is,  the  essential  movements,  stages,  or 
steps,  in  the  "  motion "  {Bewegung)  of  its  self-evolution 
as  pure  self-determination. 

(a)  In  its  pure  self-position  and  self-intuition  as  I  =  I, 
the  subject  has,  for  its  immediate  object,  itself  as  "pure 
undifferentiated  I."  That  is,  the  object  is  empty  of  all 
difference,  determination,  or  content ;  it  is  "  the  fluid  self- 
equal  essence,"  "the  universal  indestructible  substance," 
of  the  I  as  such,  —  not  an  absolute  vacuum,  but  the  pure 
universal  which  implicitly  contains  everything  in  itself,  or 
in  which  everything  lies  concealed.^ 

1  Phanomenologie  des  Geistes,  Werke,  IL  138-140. 

^  **So  ist  denn  Ich  das  Allgemeine,  in  welchem  von  allem  Besonderen 
abstrahirt  ist,  in  welchem  aber  zugleich  AUes  verhiillet  liegt.  Es  ist  des- 
halb  nicht  die  bios  abstrakte  Allgemeinheit,  sondem  die  Allgemeinheit, 
welche  Alles  in  sich  enthalt."  (Encyklopadie,  Werke,  VI.  48)  —  "  Das  erste 
dieser  Momente  ist  das  der  mit  sich  identischen  Allgemeinheit,  gleichsam 
das  neutrale  erste  Wasser,  worin  Alles  enthalten,  aber  noch  nichts 
geschieden  ist.     Der  zweite  ist  dann  die  Besonderung  dieses  Allgemeinen, 


\> 


(b)  "Desire"  of  "life,"  discontent  with  the  emptiness 
of  its  immediate  object,  impels  the  subject  (Trieb  des 
Selbstbewusstseins)  to  negate  the  object  as  "pure  undif- 
ferentiated I."  ^  But  the  negation  of  pure  undifferentiation 
is  the  position  of  difference,  and  the  "  desire  "  can  be  "  satis- 
fied "  only  by  positing  such  a  difference  in  the  I-object 
as  shall  make  it  reflect  the  I-subject.  But  the  I-object  by 
reflecting  the  I-subject  becomes  itself  I-subject  as  well  as 
I-object;  it  becomes  another  subject-object,  another  self- 
consciousness.     The  I  has  duplicated  itself. 

(c)  The  self-consciousness  now  negates  its  own  negation ; 
it  negates  the  difference  it  has  just  posited,  and  again 
posits  its  own  original  self-certainty  or  unity  with  itself 
in  a  higher  unity;  it  posits  the  truth  of  its  own  self- 
certainty  as  the  doubled  reflection  of  each  in  the  other, 
the  reduplication  of  self-consciousness.  The  other  self- 
consciousness  which  it  has  posited  in  the  object  is  just  as 
independent  as  itself,  and  now  posits  itself,  not  as  other- 
being  for  the  first,  but  as  being  for  itself ;  it  is  no  longer 
only  object,  but  also  subject  {ebenso  wohl  Ich,  wle  Gegen- 
stand).  The  two  self-consciousnesses,  then,  are  numeri- 
cally, but  not  conceptually,  two ;  they  are  empirically  or 
phaenomenally  two  units,  but  conceptually  one  universal; 
there  is  no  conceptual  difference  between  them ;  each  unit 
[to  dpt^/x<3  tv\  is  pure  subject-object,  no  more  and  no  less, 
that  and  that  only.  In  this  higher  unity  with  itself  {die 
Einheit  seiner  selbst  in  seinem  Anderssein),  the   Pure   I 

wodurch  dasselbe  einen  bestimmten  Inhalt  bekommt.  Indem  dann  dieser 
bestimmte  Inhalt  durch  die  Bethatigung  des  Allgemeinen  gesetzt  ist,  so 
kehrt  dieses  durch  denselben  zu  sich  selbst  zuriick,  und  schliesst  sich  mit 
sich  selbst  zusammen."    {Ibid.  VI.  380.) 

1  Hegers  doctrine  of  Negation  has  been  explained  and  criticised  above, 
in  the  footnote  to  §  67.  The  "  negation  "  of  the  dialectic  movement  does 
not  give  the  vacuum  {die  Leerlieit)  or  the  pure  nothing  {cin  leeres  NicMs, 
das  reine  Nichts),  but  the  nothing  which  is  a  determinate  and  has  a  con- 
tent {ist  ein  Bcstimmtes  und  liat  einen  Inhalt).  Here  not  the  I  itself  is 
negated,  but  only  its  undifferentiation,  and  the  nothing  of  that  is,  of 
course,  the  difference. 


286 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  HEGEL 


becomes  the  unity  of  all  the  plural  independent  self-con- 
sciousnesses (die  Einheit  verschiedener  fiXr  sich  seyondcr 
Selhsthetvusstsein)  ;  it  is  universal  fluidity,  with  no  solution 
of  continuity  in  the  particularity  of  its  separateness ;  it  is 
living  self-consciousness,  a  self-consciousness  for  another 
self-consciousness.  The  I  is  the  We,  and  the  We  is  the  I ; 
the  two  are  conceptually  one  and  the  same;  the  I  =  the 
We  =  the  Species  (Ga^ww*/)  =the  Reason  (Vtmunft)  =  the 
Spirit  {Geisty 

1  Kuno  Fischer,  restating  Hegel,  enumerates  the  stages  of  the  whole 
phaenomenological  development  substantially  as  follows :  I.  Conscimisnesg 
as  (1)  the  sensuous  certainty,  (2)  the  perceiving  consciousness,  (3)  the 
understanding,   and   (4)   the  single   Self;    IL   Self-Cansciousncss  as   (1) 
the  desiring  self-consciousness,  (2)  the  recognizing  self -consciousness,  (3) 
the  universal  self-consciousness  or  the  Reason,  and  (4)  the  consciousness 
of  reason,  the  truth  knowing  itself,  or  the  Spirit.     (Geschichte  der  ncucm 
Philosophic,  Jubilaumsausgabe,   VIII.   666-671.     This  volume  appeared 
after  the  present  chapter  was  written.)     As  to  the  transition  from  the  I  to 
the  We,  he  says:  *•  Among  the  living  objects  which,  in  fullilment  of  its 
desire,  the  single  self-consciousness  destroys,  devours,  and  makes  away  with, 
are  also  self-conscious  beings  ;  for  the  living  thing  which  has  the  impulse 
to  raise  itself  above  its  own  existence  is  self-conscious.     The  single  self- 
consciousness  is  now  encountered  by  anoUier  single  self-conscionsness,  the 
I  by  another  I ;  their  demeanor  to  each  other  in  mutual  strife  and  the  re- 
lation of  irmstership  and  scrvantship  leads  to  mutual  rccofpiitimi.    This 
whole  process  in  all  its  moments  and  stages  is  nametl  by  Hegel  the  rcaxj- 
nizing   self-conscioiisncss.  .  .  .  Out  of   the  relation  of  mastership  and 
servantship  develops  itself  the  rccogT^king  sd/-conscioiisness,  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  equality  of  essence  between  I  and  I.     This  essence,  however, 
in  which  the  differing  Is  are  equal  and  identical,  hence  one  and  only  one, 
is  the  Rcasmi.     Consequently,  the  recognizing  self-consciousness  has  for 
its  object  and  theme,  no  longer  the  single,  atomic,  mutually  exclusive  in- 
dividuals, but  their  identity,  — no  longer  the  single  I,  but  Uie  We;  it  is 
no  longer  the   individual  self-consciousness,   but  the  iinivirml  self-con- 
scioiimess,  or  the  Reason."     (Tlie  italics  are  Fischer's.)     In  other  words, 
Hegel,  like  Fichte,  excludes  all  Individual itiit  from  the  Ichhcit ;  the  We 
IS  not  the  correlated  total  reality  of  many  I's,  but  merely  their  common 
identical  essence,  which  is  neither  individual  nor  personal,  the  Aristot«»- 
lian  cWoy  r6  ^i'6i' ;  and  the   "universal  self-consciousness"  is  nothinff  but 
Aristotle's  impersonal  vov%.     Hegel's  actual  transition  from  one  I  to  an- 
other I  is  wholly  empirical,  arbitrary,  assertive,  naive,  —  mere  echo  of 


287 


This  abortive  attempt  to  effect  a  rational  transitiofi  from 
the  I  to  the  We  and  from  the  We  to  the  Absolute  Spirit,  is 
the  dialectical  evolution  of  the  Hegelian  Paradox.     Hegel 
began  with  Fichte  and  now  ends  with  Fiehte :  "  All  indi- 
viduals are  included  in  the  one  great  Unity  of  the  Pure 
Spirit."  ^      Both,  with  Aristotle,  acknowledge  reality  and 
intelligibility  in  the  immanent  universal  alone  (to  cTSo?  to 
cVoV),  as  the  conceptual  essence  of  the  individual ;  and  both, 
discarding  the    individual    difference    as    accidental    and 
unintelligible,  concede  to  the  individual  no  individuality  or 
personality  which  is  other  than  merely  numerical,  empiri- 
cal, phaenomenal,  and  therefore  evanescent.      The    pure 
unity  of  the  Ichheit  "  includes,"  indeed,  the  arithmetical 
plurality  of  Individualitat,  but  only  to  dissolve  it  again  in 
itself;  and  the  Pure  I,  like  the  vov?,  is  a  "universal  self- 
consciousness"  which,  containing  no  principle  of  concep- 
tual   difference    or    individuation,    leaves    the    empirical 
individual   utterly  unexplained  and  phantasmal,   and,   as 
with  Aristotle,  reduces  itself  to  a  real  unconsciousness,  an 
impersonal  reason,  a  Pure  It.     The  dialectical  evolution  of 
the  Pure  I  becomes  thus  its  dialectical  dissolution. 

§  136.  But  let  us  more  narrowly  examine  the  process 
as  Hegel  presents  it,  and  inquire  into  its  validity  as  a 
process  of  "pure  thought." 

1.  In  the  formula  of    the    pure  self-consciousness    as 

common  sense ;  while  his  transition  from  the  I  to  the  We  is  simply  tran- 
sition from  the  I's  empirical  individuality  to  its  own  rational  and  imma- 
nent universality  — from  the  I  as  rbde  ri  to  the  I  itself  as  elSoj  rh  ivl^. 
For  him,  the  We  does  not  exist  at  all  except  phaenonienally  ;  from  the 
Real  I  to  the  Real  We  he  makes  actually  no  rational  transition  wlwatever  ; 
and  the  Hegelian  Paradox  shows  itself  as  merely  the  Aristotelian  Paradox 
applied.  Fischer  throws  absolutely  no  light  on  the  difficulties  of  either, 
and  remains  unconscious  of  them  ;  hence  he  anticipates  none  of  the  criti- 
cisms of  our  present  chapter. 

*  **  Alle  Individuen  sind  in  der  Einen  grosscn  Einheit  dcs  reinen  Gcistes 
eingeschlossen  :  dies  sey  das  letzte  Wort,  wodurch  ich  mich  Ihrem  Andenken 
empfehle ;  und  das  Andenken,  zu  dem  ich  mich  Ihnen  cmpfehle." 
(Fichte,  Werkc,  I.  416.) 


II 


288 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  HEGEL 


289 


subject-object,  1  =  1,    the    immediate    I-object   is    "pure 
undifferentiated  I."    The   truth    of    the    equation    itseli 
requires,  then,  that  the  I-subject  shall  be  likewise  « pure 
undifferentiated  I."    Each  is  absolutely  and  equally  empty 
of  all  difference  or  distinguishable  content;  neither  contains 
anything  but  pure  conceptual  emptiness ;  neither  possesses 
even  numerical  unity  in  itself  to  reflect  into  the  other,  for, 
if  either  were  a  numerical  unit  in  itself,  the  equation  would 
then  necessarily  present  two  self-consciousyiesses  at  the  start, 
the    one    subject-object    would   be   already   doubled,   and 
the  first  moment  of  the  triad  would  be  a  bald   begging 
of  the  question.    It  would  be  absurd  to  represent  the 
explicit  "reduplication  of  the   seJf-consciousness "  in  the 
third  moment  as  an  evolution  from  the  first,  if  the  first 
already  contains  and  exhibits  that  explicit  reduplication. 
Keitlier  I-object  nor  I-subject,  therefore,  in  the  formula, 
I  =  I,  is  a  numerical  unit  in  itself ;  and  neither  can  reflect 
into  the  other  a  numerical  unity  or  numerical  "  otherness  " 
which  it  does  not  possess.    Hence  the  equation,  I  =  I,  as 
the  "  expression  of  self-consciousness  in  its  purity, '^  is  of 
necessity  the  expression  of  "  subject-object "  as  ojie  unit, 
and  not  as  tivo  units.     This  was  the  capital   truth  which 
Fichte   vindicated  against  Kant.      But  that   which  is  so 
empty  of  all  difference  or  content  as  to  be  in  itself  not  even 
a  numerical  unit,  not  even  "a  something,"  cannot  be  dis- 
tinguished from  "  nothing  "  {die  Leerheit,  das  reine  Nichts). 
Hence  the  formula  of  pure   self-consciousness,   1  =  1,   is 
precisely  equivalent  to  0  =  0,  and  what  cannot  be  evolVed 
out  of  the    latter  cannot  be  evolved  out  of  the  former. 
From  that  equation,  0  =  0,  not  even  Hegel  would  pretend 
to  evolve  a   "  reduplication  of   self-consciousness."     The 
0  =  0,  however,  really  expresses  the  truth  that  there  is  no 
such  thing    as   "pure    self-consciousness;"    for  all    self- 
consciousness  that  is  real  is  both  rational  and  empirical  at 
once,   never  "pure,"  and  its  true  formula  is   "I   know 
myself  in  each  and  all  of  my  conscious  states "  ( §  59). 
The  first  moment  of  Hegel's  triad  lies,  therefore,  between 


.  \ 


lii 


Scylla  and  Charybdis  :  the  equation  1  =  1,  either  postulates 
two  self-consciousnesses  at  the  start  as  coequal  units,  as 
1  =  1,  and  thereby  begs  the  question  of  the  "  reduplication 
of  self-consciousness,"  or  else  it  is  equivalent  to  0  =  0, 
and  goes  no  farther. 

2.  Hegel  makes  his  election  in  the  former  alternative; 
he  is,  of  course,  unconscious  of  begging  the  question,  but 
he  begs  it,  nevertheless.     He  illicitly  introduces  numerous 
empirical  elements  into  his  pure  concept.     That  is,  in  the 
formula,  I  =  I,  he  takes  the  I-subject  virtually  as  a  full- 
fledged  empirical  self-consciousness,  endowed  with  "  desire  " 
and  the  power  of  "  gratifying  "  it,  determined  in  itself  as  a 
numerical  unit  and  "  certain  "  of  itself  as  such,  and  enabled 
to  "  reflect "  this  its  own  individual  unity  into  the  I-object ; 
further,  he  takes  the  I-object,  ostensibly  defined  as  "  pure 
undifferentiated    I,"  as    in  fact    an    empirical     "other," 
another  empirical  self-consciousness,  stout  enough  to  resist 
and  defeat  the  sublating  or  annulling  attack  of  the  I-sub- 
ject, to  maintain  its  own  "independence,"  and  to  establish 
its  own  independent  "  being-for-self  "  by  "reflecting"  back 
into  the  I-subject  as  defiant  a  self-assertion  as  its  own. 
Frankenstein  has   created   his  "monster."    But  "desire," 
"gratification,"  "reflection,"  "certainty,"  numerical  unity, 
Trieh, —  all  these,    without  which  the  triad  of  moments 
would  lack   all    mediation,    are   empirical   determinations 
which  cannot  possibly  exist,  either  in  the  I-object  or  in 
the  I-subject,  as  "  pure  undifferentiated  I."     Yet  Hegel  is 
obliged  to  assume  their  presence  in  both,  if  the  motion  of 
the  Begriff  is  to  move  at  all.     The  result,  however,  is  to 
beg  the  question  by  assuming  these  differences,  these  em- 
pirical determinations,  in  the  "pure  undifferentiated  I" 
with  which  he  starts. 

3.  On  these  easy  terms,  he  arrives  in  the  third  moment 
at  the  Verdopphmg  des  SelhsthewusstseinSy  the  plurality  of 
independent  self-consciousnesses,  as  if  the  result  were  a 
pure  self-determining  motion  of  the  Begriff  in  the  "ele- 
ment of  pure  thought."     In  truth,  the  process  is  nothing 


YOL.   I. 


19 


i<l 


290 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  HEGEL 


291 


but  a  thinly  disguised,  palpably  evident  petitio  princtpn  ; 
for  it  starts  ostensibly  with  the  pure  self-consciousness,  in 
fact  with  two  empirical  self-consciousnesses,  and  arrives 
ostensibly  at  a  dialectical  evolution  of  the  two  self-con- 
sciousnesses, in  fact  at  a  mere  assertion  of  common-sense. 
For  the  plurality  of  independent  self-conscious  subjects 
never  has  been  and  never  can  be  arrived  at  logically 
by  arguing  from  I  to  I,  —  that  is,  from  individual  to 
individual  or  particular  to  particular ;  such  an  argu- 
ment is  mere  volitional  assumption  of  a  desired  con- 
clusion, not  a  logical  or  even  speculative  process  of  any 
sort.  The  subject-object  is  one,  and  one  only  ;  and  the 
attempt  to  elicit  from  it  another  subject-object,  whether  by 
dialectic  triadism,  transferential  idealism,  inferential  real- 
ism, or  what  not,  is  a  sorry  waste  of  speculative  ingenuity. 
The  I  originates  in  the  We,  never  in  the  I  except  through  the 
We:  no  juggler-trick  of  Scheinen  in  Anderes,  Wlderschein, 
Verdopplung  des  SelbstbewusstseinSy  will  ever  shake  the 
inexorable  necessity  of  that  law  of  unit-universals.  HegePs 
whole  dialectic  process  is  self-bound  to  proceed  within  the 
charmed  circle  of  a  Pure  I  which  is  nothing  but  a  Pure  It, 
the  Pure  Notion  which  everlastingly  falls  short  of  the  Real 
I ;  and  it  is  no  derogation  from  his  unsurpassed  speculative 
genius  to  point  out  that  the  Hegelian  Paradox  can  have  no 
more  truth  than  the  Aristotelian  Paradox  from  which  it  is 
derived.  So  impossible  is  the  endeavor  of  "thought"  to 
be  "  pure,"  to  separate  experience  from  reason,  that  Hegel 
himself,  as  Trendelenburg  long  ago  pointed  out,  has  to 
reintroduce  piecemeal  the  very  experience  he  excludes  in 
the  lump.     It  is  the  eternal  irony  of  error. 

4.  In  the  continued  equation,  the  I  =  the  We  =  the 
Species  =  the  Reason  :;=  the  Spirit,  the  Hegelian  Paradox 
exhibits  itself  as  the  necessary  fruition  of  the  Aristotelian 
Paradox.  "The  object  of  self-consciousness,"  says  Hegel, 
"  is  species  for  itself,  universal  fluidity  in  the  particularity 
of  its  self-multiplication  {filr  sich  selbst  Gattung,  allgemeine 
Fliissigkelt   in   der  Eigenheit  seiner  Absonderung)"     The 


object  in  general,  the  object  as  such,  the  unit  of  existence 
as  the  unconscious  thing,  he  has  already  defined  in  exact 
conformity  with  Aristotle :  "  The  object  [i.  e.  ro'Sc  rt]  is 
determined  as  having  (a)  an  absolutely  accidental  side  [/.  e, 
ri  (rvfi,p€/3rfK6Ta  grounded  in  {JAi;],  but  also  (J3)  an  essentiality 
and  a  permanent  element  [i.  e.  to  cTSos  to  cVoV]."  ^    This 
"absolutely  accidental  side,"  as  he  goes  on  to  explain,  is 
the  "  manifoldness  "  of  the  "  phaeuomenon,"  which  on  'its 
sensuous  side  is  the  object  of  perception,  but  on  the  side  of 
its  "inwardness,"  or  essence,  the  object  of  conception  or 
tmderstandlng ;  and  this   manifoldness   of  the   accidents, 
which  constitutes  the  empirical  individuality  or  individual 
difference  of  the   thing  as  a  specimen  in  its  species,  is 
thrown  out  of  consideration  as  no  intelligible  part  of  it  — 
in  perfect  accordance  with  Aristotle's  principle  that  "par- 
ticulars are   innumerable  and  cannot  be  known."     What 
remains  as   intelligible  is  the  "inwardness,"  the  essence, 

1  "Der  Gegenstand  hat  nunmehr  die  Bestimmung,  (a)  eine  schlechthin 
accidentelle  Seite,  aber  (/S)  auch  eine  Wesentlichkeit  und  ein  Bleibendes  zu 
haben.     Das  Bewusstsein,  indem  der  Gegenstand  fiir  dasselbe  diese  Bestim- 
mung hat,  ist  der  Verstand,  dem  die  Dinge  der  Wahrnelimung  nur  als 
Er!ich4'inungen  gelten,   und  der  das  Inncre  der  Dinge   betrachtet.     Das 
Innere  der  Dinge  ist  das  an  ihnen,  was  einestheils  von  der  Erscheinung 
frei  ist,  namlich  von  ihrer  Manniqfaltigkcit,  die  ein  gegen  sich  selbst 
Aeusserliches  ausniacht ;  anderntheils  aber  das,  was  durch  seinen  Begriff 
darauf  bezogen  ist."    (Wcrke,    XVIIL    83.) -"Die   Dinge   uberhaupt 
haben  eine  bleibende,  innere  Natur  und  ein  ausserliches  Daseyn.     Sie 
leben  und  sterben,  entstehen  und  vergehen  ;  ihre  Wesentlichkeit,  ihre 
Allgemeinheit  ist  die  Gattung,  und  diese  ist  nicht  bios  als  ein  Gemein- 
schaftliches    aufzufassen."     (Encyklopadie,     Werke,    VI.    iQ.)—«Alle 
Dinge  sind  eine  Gcdtimg  (ihre  Bestimmung  und  Zweck)  in  einer  cinzclneri 
Wirkhchkeit  von  einer  besmdern  Beschaffenheit ;  und  ihre  Endlichkeit 
1st,  dass  das  Besondere  derselben  dem  Allgemeinen  gemass  seyn  kann  oder 
auch  nicht."    {Ibid,  VI.  344.)    That  is,  the  specimens  may  or  may  not 
conform  to  the  rigidly  unchangeable  species,  which  inheres  in  each  one  of 
them  as  the  immanent  universal,  but  which  may  be  defeated  of  its  forma- 
tive aim  by  the  -  absolutely  accidental  side  "  of  them  -  that  chaotic  mass 
of  iTv^fie^nKSra  grounded  in  mere  OXrj  which  is  amenable  to  no  law  or 
reason.    This  is  Aristotelianism  of  the  strictest  orthodoxy,  on  its  Antis- 
thenian  as  well  as  on  ite  Platonic  side  (§  79). 


292 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  IIEGEL 


293 


the  essential  form,  the  species  as  such  ;  and  this  essence  as 
the  species,  as  the  pure  universal,  is  identical  with  the 
essence  of  each  and  every  specimen,  as  the  empty  numerical 
individual  purified  from  its  empirical  individuality.  Hence 
results  the  doctrine  of  the  absolute  conceptual  indifference 
of  the  species  and  the  specimen,  as  a  general  principle  in 
which  Aristotle  and  Hegel  are  completely  at  one. 

It  is  a  mere  matter  of  course,  therefore,  when  Hegel 
applies  this  general  principle  to  the  object  of  self-conscious- 
ness, and  absolutely  identifies  the  I,  as  the  essence  of  the 
specimen  when  purified  from  its  phaenomenal  manifold- 
ness,  with  the  We,  as  the  essence  of  the  species  identi- 
cally inherent  in  all  the  specimens.  The  principle  of  the 
Aristotelian  Paradox,  as  inherence  of  the  whole  universal 
in  the  whole  individual  and  subsumption  of  the  whole 
individual  under  the  whole  universal  (§  126),  requires 
inherence  of  the  whole  We  in  the  whole  I  and  subsumption 
of  the  whole  I  under  the  whole  We,  through  the  complete 
suppression  of  empirical  individuality  or  real  personality 
as  necessarily  inconceivable.  The  entire  empirical  self- 
consciousness  is  unintelligible,  because  it  is  the  "phae- 
nomenal manifoldness,"  the  "absolutely  accidental  side," 
of  the  Real  I ;  nothing  is  intelligible  in  it  except  the  pure 
self-consciousness,  the  Pure  I,  the  universal  "1  =  1"  — 
absolutely  nothing  more.  All  of  personality  that  is  either 
real,  knowable,  or  permanent,  in  what  sphere  of  Being 
soever,  lies,  according  to  Hegel,  in  this  pure  universality 
divested  of  all  real  individuality,  in  this  pure  subject-object 
as  "  I  =  I ;  "  and  that  is  not  Pure  I,  but  Pure  It.*    On  the 

1  *'Ich  ist  das  reinc  Fursichseyn,  worin  alles  Besondere  negirt  und 
aufgehoben  ist,  dieses  Letzte,  Einfache  mid  Reine  des  Bewusstseins. 
Wir  k(3nnen  sagen  :  Ich  und  Denken  sind  dasselbe,  oder  bestimmter : 
Ich  ist  das  Denken  als  Denkendes."     (Encyklopailie,   Werke,  VI.  47.) 

—  **  Das  Princip  der  Personlickkeit  aber  ist  die  Allgemeinheit."     {Ibid. 
VI.  322.)  —  "Ich  ist  nur  allgemeines."     (Phanomenologic,  Werke,  II.  78.) 

—  *•  Ich  ist  das  an  und  fiir  sich  AUgemeine."     (Encyklopadie,   Werke, 
VI.  37.)    Such  an  Ich  is  nothing  but  an  Es,  and  that  Es  a  mere  0.    The 


Other  hand,  to  adopt  as  the  formula  of  real  personality,  "I 
know  myself  in  each  and  all  of  my  conscious  states  as  One 
of  the  We  "  (§  59),  which  expresses  the  identity  in  difter- 
euce  of  universality  and  individuality,  and  conceives  the 
I,  not  as  pure  subject-object  or  as  "  pure  undifferentiated 
I,"  but  as  real  unit-universal  and  real  person,  is  to  set 
aside,  not  the  ^Hegelian  Paradox  alone,  but  the  whole 
German  ideal  of  "  pure  thought."  And  to  do  this  is  the 
imperative  demand  of  the  scientific  philosophy  that  is  soon 
to  be. 

5.  Hegel's  principle  of  the  conceptual  indifference  of 
species  and  specimen,  and  the  consequent  iudistinguish- 
ableness  of  the  I  and  the  We,  while  in  complete  conformity 
with  Aristotle,  is  in  complete  non-conformity  with  Darwin. 
The  great  controversy  over  the  orir/m  of  species  which  has 
made  memorable  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
and  which  has  worked  a  revolution  in  science  not  to  be  re- 
versed, had  its  root  in  conceptions  of  the  nature  of  species 
which  were  dimly  but  obstinately  unlike ;  and  out  of  this 
unlikeness  must  grow  a  controversy  in  philosophy  which 
has  as  yet  scarcely  begun.  When  it  is  fairly  under  way, 
it  must  work  a  revolution  in  Philosophy,  too,  not  to  be 
reversed;  for,  as  we  see,  it  vitally  affects  the  notion  of 
personality  and  all  that  depends  upon  personality,  and  its 
decision  must  turn  on  the  truth  or  untruth  of  the  Aristo- 
telian and  Hegelian  Paradoxes.  Is  there  indeed  no  intelli- 
gible difference  among  the  many  specimens  of  one  and  the 
same  species,  and  are  they,  as  Aristotle  and  Hegel  teach, 
conceptually  indistinguishable?  Is  there  no  intelligible 
difference  between  the  specimen  and  its  species;  above 
all,  between  the  I  and  the  We,  as  human  specimen  and 
human  species?  If  philosophy  as  it  now  exists  can  dis- 
cover none,  so  much  the  worse  for  a  philosophy  incompe- 
tent to  its  task.  It  is  quite  time  for  the  human  intellect 
to  challenge    those    false   identifications  of    species   and 

I-object  becomes  a  real  object  solely  through  the  varied  content  of  its 
individuality,  of  which  the  I-subject  is  the  unity  in  that  universality. 


;i 


294 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


specimen,  of  I  and  We,  and  to  prove  itself  capable  of 
philosophy  by  equating  its  concepts  with  the  realities. 
From  the  imbecilities  of  a  Begriffsphilosophie  which  ends 
in  such  a  self-defeat  as  the  Hegelian  Paradox,  the  acuter, 
profounder,  and  more  successful  philosophy  of  the  future 
will  turn  with  gratitude  to  Darwin,  who,  though  not  techni- 
cally a  philosopher,  has  rendered  to  philosophy  an  incal- 
culable service  by  shaking  the  very  foundations  of  the 
Aristotelian  Paradox  and  overthrowing  the  despotism  of 
an  error  two  thousand  years  old,  — by  discovering  and 
verifying  the  scientific  (and  therefore  philosophic)  value 
of  the  individual  difference  as  the  "spontaneous  variation.?' 
Through  this  discovery,  Darwin  has  established  for  all  time 
the  new  concept  of  species,  as  not  merely  that  real  common 
element  of  the  many  specimens  which  is  abstractible  as  the 
scientific  definition  of  the  class,  and  which  has  served 
admirably  the  purposes  of  mere  classification,  but  still 
more  as  that  organic  unity  of  all  the  specimens  in  one 
species  which  explains  genesis,  lives  a  real  life  of  its  own, 
descends  from  ancestral  species,  leaves  a  posterity  of 
species  yet  unborn,  and  converts  the  world-wide  variety 
of  living  forms  into  a  veritable  Ygdrasill,  a  Tree  of  Life. 
Applied  in  the  sphere  of  self-consciousness,  the  relations 
are  the  same,  and  to  think  them  out  thoroughly  is  the 
problem  of  philosophy  for  the  future. 

§  137.  Hegel  gives  us  an  immense  and  futile  tautology  : 
the  I  is  "pure  self -consciousness,"  the  Thou  is  "pure  self- 
consciousness,"  the  We  is  "pure  self-consciousness,"  the 
Species  is  "  pure  self-consciousness,"  the  Reason  is  "  pure 
self-consciousness,"  the  Spirit  is  "  pure  self-consciousness  " 
—  with  no  elements  but  pure  universality,  pure  particu- 
larity, and  pure  individuality,  the  three  rarefied  and  subli- 
mated moments  of  the  Begriff  des  Begriffs  which  eternally 
repeat  each  other  like  waves  of  the  sea  in  bewildering 
motion,  and  in  which  the  only  individuals  are  Aristotle's 
o^ota,  dSia<^optt,  to  dpi^/A<5  cv,  Conceptually  identical  witli  each 
other  and  with  their  immanent  universal,  bare  units   as 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  HEGEL 


295 


units.     This  infinite  monotony  is  the  very  essence  of  the 
"Absolute  Spirit"  itself,  which  Hegel  thus  expounds:  — 

"  The  word  of  reconciliation  [between  Evil  and  Good,  or,  as  he 
here  calls  it,  Duty]  is  the  existing  Spirit,  which  iutuites  iu  its 
opposite,  in  the  pure  self-consciousness  (das  reine  Wissen  seiner 
selbst)  as  absolutely  independent  individuality y  the  pure  self- 
consciousness  as  universal  essence,  —  a  mutual  recognition  which 
is  the  Absolute  Spirit.  It  enters  into  existence  only  at  the  apex, 
at  which  its  pure  self-consciousness  is  opposition  and  interchange 
with  itself.  Knowing  that  its  pure  knowing  is  the  abstract  essence, 
it  is  this  knowing  Good  (Pflicht)  in  absolute  opposition  to  the 
knowing  which  knows  itself  to  be  the  essence  as  absolute  individu- 
ality of  the  self.  The  former  [i.  e.  Good]  is  the  pure  continuity  of 
the  universal,  which  knows  that  the  individuality  that  knows  itself 
as  essence  is  intrinsic  nothingness,  the  Evil.  The  latter  \_i.  e.  Evil], 
however,  is  the  absolute  discontinuity  which  knows  itself  abso- 
lutely in  its  pure  One  lEins  =  to  a/n^^w  ei/],  and  knows  that  uni- 
versal as  the  unreal  which  is  only  for  others.  Both  sides  are 
refined  to  that  purity  in  which  no  selfless  existence,  no  negation 
of  consciousness  remains  in  them,  but  that  Good  is  the  consistent 
character  of  its  self-consciousness,  and  this  Evil  has  likewise  its 
aim  in  its  own  independent  being,  and  its  reality  in  its  utterance; 
the  content  of  this  utterance  is  the  substance  of  its  existence ;  it 
is  the  assertion  of  the  certainty  of  the  Spirit  in  itself.  Both  of  its 
self-certain  spirits  [i.  e.  the  Good  and  the  Evil,  the  pure  continuity 
of  the  universal  and  the  pure  discontinuity  of  the  particular  or 
individual,  as  die  tvissenden  reinen  Begriffe,  and  so  as  heide  ihrer 
selbst  gewissen  Geister]  have  no  other  aim  than  its  Pure  Self,  and 
no  other  reality  and  existence  than  just  this  Pure  Self.  But  they 
are  still  different,  and  the  difference  is  absolute,  because  it  is 
posited  in  this  element  of  the  pure  Begriff.  It  is  so,  moreover, 
not  only  for  us,  but  for  the  Begriffe  themselves  which  stand  in  this 
opposition.  For  these  Begriffe  are,  it  is  true,  determinate  ones  in 
reference  to  each  other,  but  at  the  same  time  universals  in  them- 
selves, so  that  they  fill  out  the  whole  extent  of  the  Self,  and  this 
Self  has  no  other  content  than  this  determination  of  it,  which 
neither  goes  beyond  it  nor  falls  short  of  it ;  for  the  one,  the  abso- 
lutely universal,  is  just  as  much  the  pure  self-consciousness  as  is 
the  other,  the  absolute  discretion  of  individuality,  and  both  are 
only  this  pure  self-consciousness.     The  two  determinations,  there- 


r 


296 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  riULOSOPHY 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  HEGEL 


fore,  are  the  knowing  pure  notions  whose  determination  itself  is 
to  know  immediately,  or  whose  relation  and  opposition  is  the  I. 
Through  this  fact,  they  are  for  each  other  these  absolute  opposites; 
it  is  the  completely  Internal  which  has  thus  entered  into  contrast 
with  itself  and  into  existence ;  they  constitute  the  Pure  Knowing 
which,  by  this  opposition,  is  posited  as  consciousness.  But  it  is  not 
yet  self-consciousness.  This  realization  it  has  in  the  motion  of  this 
opposition.  For  this  opposition  itself  is  rather  the  unbroken  con- 
tinuity and  equality  of  the  '  I  =  I ' ;  and  each  for  iVse// annuls  itself 
in  it,  just  throu^  the  contradiction  of  its  pure  universality,  which 
at  the  same  time  still  struggles  against  its  equ.ility  with  the  other, 
and  separates  itself  from  it.  Through  this  alienation,  this  Know- 
ing which  has  cut  itself  in  two  in  its  existence  returns  into  the 
unity  of  the  Self;  it  is  the  real  I,  the  universal  knowing  of  self  in 
its  absolute  counterparty  namely,  in  the  knowing  which  is  in  itself 
and  which,  on  account  of  the  purity  of  its  separate  Insichseyn^  is 
itself  the  completely  universal.  The  reconciling  Yesy  in  which 
both  I's  cease  from  their  opposed  existence,  is  the  existence  of  the 
reduplicated  /,  which  remains  therein  equal  to  itself  and  in  its 
complete  alienation  and  opposite  has  the  certainty  of  itself :  it  is 
the  appearing  God  between  them,  who  know  themselves  as  the 
Pure  Knowing.*'  ^ 

§  138.  It  is  quite  possible  to  admire  the  subtilty,  con- 
tinuity, and  power  which  Hegel  exhibits  in  the  handling 
of  his  conceptions,  yet  to  see  without  admiration  the 
strained  artificiality  of  his  dialectic  method  and  tlie 
baffling  sterility  of  its  result  as  an  interpretation  of  reality. 
Its  falsity  lies  in  the  fundamental  thesis  of  all  idealism 
which  understands  itself:  that  "knowledge"  must  be 
"pure  thought"  — that  consciousness  can  have  no  object 
but  itself — that  the  content  of  the  pure  subject-object  as 
"1  =  1 "  is  the  sum  of  its  knowledge  as  self-knowledge. 
The  previous  question,  "Is  pure  thought  either  actual  or 
possible  ?  "  idealism  has  never  yet  answered ;  for  the  only 
answer  is  No, 

Hegel  does  the  best  he  can  with  his  "  I  =  I,"  as  the 
"  expression  of  self-consciousness  in  its  purity,"  the  source 
of  the  motion  of  the  "  absolute  Begriff,^^  and  the  goal  of 

1  Phanoraenologie,  Werke,  II.  506-508. 


297 


t  il 


this  motion  as  "  the  absolute  Knowing,  or  the  Spirit  know- 
ing itself  as  Spirit."  ^ 

But  we  saw  (§  136)  that,  in  this  formula  for  the  pure 
self -consciousness  as  subject-object,  the  immediate  I-object 
is  "pure  undifferentiated  I,"  and  that  the  truth  of  the 
equation  itself  requires  the  I-subject  to  be  likewise  "  pure 
undifferentiated  I."    Now,  since  the  numerical  unit,  in  its 
most  abstract  or  purest  form,  is  yet  different  (1)  from  the 
multitude  and  (2)  from  the  fraction,   it  follows  that   the 
absolute  absence  of  difference  in  the  "  pure  undifferentiated 
I  "  involves  the  denial  or  negation  both  of  the  I-object  and 
the  I-subject  as  a  numerical  unit.     The  I,  then,  is  not  even 
a  pure  unit  of  existence,  a  "something,"  but  becomes  abso- 
lutely indistinguishable  from  non-existence,  or  "  nothing." 
Consequently,  the  equation,  "I  =  I,"  that  is,  "pure  undif- 
ferentiated I  =  pure  undifferentiated  I,"  becomes  simply, 
0  =  0.     But,  if  the  first  moment  of  the  triad  thus  abso- 
lutely disappears  even  in  pure  thought  into  the  night  of 
absolute  zero,  —  if  the  attempt  to  think  pure  identity  with- 
out difference  is  the  self-annihilation  of  thought  itself,  —  the 
triad  as  a  whole  disappears  with  its  first  moment,  and  noth- 
ing is  left,  even  in  pure  thought,  of  the  Begriff  des  Begriffs. 
In  order  to  escape  this  self-stultification,  we  saw  that 
Hegel  was  obliged  to  relax  the  rigor  of  his  logic,  to  admit 
at  least  a  little  difference  into  his  "  pure  undifferentiated 
I,"  and  to  adulterate  his  reines  Denken  with  a  large  per- 
centage of  Erfahrung,     The  "  element  of  pure  thought " 
proving  to  be  too  highly  rarefied  to  permit  respiration  even 
to  the  "  pure  Begriff ^^^  he  found  himself  unable  to  mediate 
between  the  "  pure  undifferentiated  I "  in  the  first  moment 
and  the  "  reduplication  of  self-consciousness  "  in  the  third 
moment   without    introducing   various    strictly    empirical 
elements,  not  only  numerical  unity,    but   even   "desire," 
"gratification,"  "certainty,"   "reflection,"   "impulse"  or 
Trieh.     With  the  aid  of  these  empirical  elements,  he  could 
interpret  the  original  "  I  =  I,"  not  as  0  =  0,  but  as  1  =  1, 

^  Phanomenologie,  II.  612. 


298 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


and  so  arrive  at  the  "  reduplication  of  self-consciousness  " 
as  1  +  1  =  2.  This  desired  conclusion,  however,  instead  of 
being  a  dialectical  development,  is  now  seen  to  be  nothing 
but  a  simple  begging  of  the  question ;  for  2,  as  a  sum  or 
"  reduplication,"  is  manifestly  conditioned  upon  the  presup- 
position of  the  1  -f  1  as  already  separate  and  numerically 
differentiated  units.  If  each  of  the  I's  is  not  1  at  the  start, 
their  sum  will  not  be  2  at  the  end.  Yet  this  is  to  relapse 
into  that  separation  of  subject  and  object  in  self-conscious- 
ness against  which  in  Kant,  Fichte  made  his  memorable 
protest  (§  108).  In  the  light  of  these  criticisms,  let  us  now 
examine  the  just  translated  passage  on  the  dialectical  evo- 
lution of  the  Begriff  of  the  "  I  =  I  "  as  der  absolute  Geist. 
The  startling  distinctness  of  the  original  dualism  is  appar- 
ent all  through. 

§  139.  The  Absolute  Spirit  {der  absolute  Geist,  dieses 
reine  Selbst,  der  erscheinende  Gott)  is  the  reciprocal  recog- 
nition, and  in  that  the  single  self-certainty,  of  two  Spirits 
as  pure  knowing  {beide  Hirer  selbst  geivissen  Geister,  die 
wissenden  reinen  Begriffe,  beide  Ich))  "the  I"  is  their 
"  relation  and  opposition."  The  first  of  these  two  Spirits 
is  pure  self-consciousness  as  Universality,  pure  continuity 
of  the  universal  essence  as  Duty  or  the  Good.  The  second 
is  pure  self-conscious ness  as  Individuality,  absolute  discon- 
tinuity of  the  universal  essence  as  Nothingness  or  the  Evil.^ 
The  two  are  absolutely  different  from  each  other,  yet  both 
are  universals  in  themselves  and  interpenetrate  each  other ; 

1  "Evil  is  nothing  else  than  nonconformity  of  the  Is  to  the  Ought 
{Unangemessenheit  des  Seyns  zu  dem  Sollen).  .  .  .  There  is  no  evil  or  pain 
in  the  dead,  because  in  inorganic  nature  the  Notion  does  not  contradict  its 
own  Existence,  and  does  not  abide  in  the  Difference  as  at  the  same  time 
its  Subject.  In  life,  and  still  more  in  the  spirit,  this  immanent  distinction 
is  already  present,  and  with  it  enters  an  Ought ;  and  this  negativity,  sub- 
jectivity, I,  freedom,  are  the  principles  of  evil  and  of  pain.  Jacob  Bohra 
conceived  the  I-hood  as  pain  and  grief,  and  as  the  source  of  nature  and  the 
spirit."  (Encyklopadie,  Philosophic  des  Geistes,  Werke,  VII.  ii.  364.) 
That  is,  the  I  is  the  root  of  all  Evil.  This  explains  Hegel's  antithesis  of 
Universality  and  Individuahty  as  that  of  Good  and  EviL 


I 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  HEGEL 


299 


each  by  itself  fills  out  the  entire  circumference  of  the  Pure 
Self,  which  has  no  other  content  than  just  these  two  inter- 
penetrating determinations  of  Universality  and  Individu- 
ality as  its  own  inner  self-determination.  Each  knows 
the  other  as  pure  self-consciousness;  but  the  single  self- 
certainty  of  the  two  as  one,  that  is,  the  pure  self-conscious- 
ness of  the  Spirit  knowing  itself  as  Spirit,  arises  through 
the  motion  of  their  opposition,  as  first  positing  and  then 
cancelling  their  own  separateness.  As  both  are  universals, 
each  is  the  whole  opposition,  and  so  annuls  itself  as  a 
member  of  it;  by  which  annulment  the  perfect  unity  of 
the  I  =  I  is  restored  through  free  self-renunciation.  The 
reconciling  Yes  in  which  each  of  the  two  I's  renounces, 
resigns,  and  sacrifices  its  opposed  existence  is  the  existence 
of  the  Real  I,  the  One  Self  which  is  the  reduplication  of 
self-consciousness  (Baseyn  des  zur  Ziveiheit  ausgedehnten 
Ichs,  diess  in  seinem  Daseyn  entziveite  Wissen,  Verdopplung 
des  Selbstbeivusstseins),  or  the  Appearing  God  as  pure  self- 
consciousness  of  One  in  Two  {Ick  =  Ich :  Ich,  das  Wir, 
und  Wir  das  Ich  ist). 

In  this  culmination  of  the  Hegelian  Paradox  as  the  Ab- 
solute Spirit,  which  "  enters  into  existence,"  but  "  only  at 
the  apex,"  and  then  only  as  a  "  relation,"  only  as  the  Ver- 
hdltniss  of  beide  Ich  as  das  Ich,  we  have  the  final  answer  of 
the  Greek-German  concept-philosophy  to  the  original  Greek 
problem  of  the  One  and  the  Many,  the  apparently  irrecon- 
cilable conflict  of  unity  and  multiplicity  in  the  universe. 
Pythagoras  found  the  secret  of  Being  in  Number ;  Hegel 
finds  it  only  in  Pure  Number.  For,  apart  from  certain 
empirical  elements  which  have  no  rightful  place  in  "  pure 
thought,"  nothing  but  purely  arithmetical  or  void  number 
(which  itself  is  empirical  in  the  last  analysis)  is  found  in 
the  Absolute  Spirit.     This  will  easily  appear. 

§  140.  Universality,  particularity,  and  individuality  are 
the  three  essential  moments,  the  only  moments,  of  the  Pure 
Notion.^      But  these  are  pure  universals  abstracted  from 

1  Encyklopadie,  Werke,  VI.  315,  320. 


300 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


experience,  in  which  they  are  given  only  as  real  unit-uni- 
versals,  in  the  form  of  genus,  species,  and  specimen.  The 
real  individual  in  the  first  instance  is  the  specimen,  the 
filled  unit  of  existence,  at  once  the  real  unit  to  its  own 
universal  species  and  the  real  universal  to  its  own  particu- 
lars or  individual  difference ;  while,  in  the  second  instance, 
the  species  itself  is  an  individual  or  filled  unit  of  a  higher 
order,  a  real  unit  or  specimen  to  its  genus  as  a  higher  spe- 
cies, and  a  real  universal  to  its  own  particulars,  namely,  its 
own  included  specimens  with  all  their  included  individual 
differences.  Genus,  species,  and  specimen  are  the  filled 
units  of  existence,  as  opposed  to  the  desiccated  or  empty 
units  out  of  which  alone  "pure  thought"  constructs  the 
abstractions  of  universality,  particularity,  and  individual- 
ity. For  at  the  bottom  of  all  three  of  these  assumed 
"  pure  moments  "  of  the  "  pure  notion  "  lies,  and  must  lie, 
simple  perception  of  the  individuaL  If  the  individual  is 
absolutely  extinguished  in  imperceptibility,  conceptual  in- 
dividuality goes  into  extinction  with  it ;  hence,  in  order  to 
think  individuality  as  a  moment  of  the  Begriff,  the  indi- 
vidual, too,  must  be  thought,  at  least  as  the  empty  unit, 
the  unit  emptied  of  all  individual  difference  but  number, 
the  arithmetical  or  merely  numerical  unit  as  such.  "  Pure 
thought "  may  suppress  the  individual  difference  and  reduce 
the  ToSc  Tt  to  TO  apt^/Aw  €v ;  but  this  arithmetical  individual 
it  must  retain,  or  lose  the  very  concept  of  individuality. 
Yet  the  pure  arithmetical  unit  (das  Einzelne)^  just  because 
it  has  been  emptied  of  all  conceptual  content,  cannot  be 
conceived  at  all ;  it  can  only  be  perceived ;  and  only  as  a 
perception,  recognized  or  unrecognized  as  such,  can  it  enter 
into  the  concept  of  individuality  as  a  moment  of  the  pure 
Begriff,  Here  once  more  is  the  impossibility  of  "pure 
thought "  forced  upon  our  attention ;  the  pure  unit  itself, 
on  which  all  three  moments  of  the  Begriff  equally  depend, 
turns  out  not  to  be  pure,  but  empirical.  But  Hegel  treats 
it  as  pure,  precisely  as  Kant  before  him  treated  geometrical 
figures  with  their  points,  lines,  and  surfaces  (which  are 


^  n 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  HEGEL 


301 


self-evidently  mere  sense-intuitions  or  visualizations  of 
the  sensuous-empirical  imagination)  as  "pure  intuitions" 
in  mathematics  and  as  elements  of  "pure  knowledge  a 
priori"  Unless,  therefore,  the  empirical  but  empty  arith- 
metical unit  is  admitted  into  the  Begriff,  as  the  indispen- 
sable presupposition  of  all  individuality,  particularity,  and 
universality  as  its  moments,  the  Begriff  itself  vanishes. 
Its  admission  conceded  and  winked  at,  then,  what  are 
these  moments  in  themselves  ? 

Each  of  these  three  moments  is  a  "  pure  universal,"  and 
each  in  turn  is  the  whole  "'  pure  notion  "  itself.  Pure  in- 
dividuality or  totality  is  that  which  is  common  to  all  indi- 
viduals minus  their  individual  differences ;  ^  it  is  the  cTSos 
TO  ivov  in  every  toSc  Tt  as  such,  that  is,  the  immanent  uni- 
versal as  empty  arithmetical  unity  in  every  to  apiOfiw  ev. 
Pure  particularity  is  that  which  is  common  to  all  species 
minus  their  specific  differences.  Pure  universality  is  that 
which  is  common  to  all  genera  minus  their  generic  differ- 
ences. When  all  individual  (except  numerical),  all  specific, 
and  all  generic  differences  are  thus  discarded  or  abstracted 
from  the  specimen,  species,  and  genus,  nothing  remains  but 
mere  relations  of  number,  mere  formal  determinations  as 
one,  some,  and  all ;  and  these  determinations  of  pure  num- 
ber constitute  the  whole  conceptual  content  of  the  three 
moments  of  HegeFs  reiner  Begriff,  even  in  its  highest  form 
as  der  absolute  Geist,  which  thus  appears  as  a  mere  apothe- 
osis of  the  multiplication  table.  In  this  way  the  Begriffs- 
philosophie  exhibits  itself  as  indeed  the  "self-returning 
circle  "  whose  curve  sweeps  back  to  its  starting-point,  and 
Hegel  himself  appears  as  Pythagoras  redivivus, 

1  **  Das  Einzelne  ist  dasselbe,  was  das  Wirkliche  ist.  .  .  .  Die  Einzeln- 
heit  ist  aber  nicht  in  dem  Sinne  nur  unmittelbarer  [i.e.  empirical] 
Einzelnheit  zu  nehmen,  nach  der  wir  voii  einzelnen  Dingen,  Menschen 
sprechen  ;  diese  Bestimmtheit  der  Einzelnheit  komnit  erst  beim  Urtheile 
vor.  Jedes  Moment  des  Begriffs  ist  selbst  der  ganze  Begriff,  aber  die 
Einzelnheit,  das  Subjekt,  ist  der  als  Totalitat  gesetzte  Begriff."  (Ency- 
klopadie,  Werke,  VI.  320.) 


302 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  HEGEL 


303 


§  141.  In  the  ultimate  interpretation  of  the  "  I  =  I "  as 
the  notion  of  the  notion  or  Absolute  Spirit,  the  "Spirit 
knowing  itself  as  Spirit,"  the  three  moments  are  reduced  to 
two,  particularity  being  evidently  included  under  individu- 
ality. The  two  moments  of  Universality  and  Individuality 
are  now  treated  as  each  in  itself  a  Knowing  I,  each  in  itself 
a  pure  self-consciousness.  The  one  I,  or  Universality,  is 
identified  with  Duty  or  the  Good,  because  it  is  cojitinuity 
of  the  universal  essence  as  pure  knowing ;  its  goodness  is 
nothing  but  this  continuity,  this  absolute  undifferentiation, 
this  pure  self-identity  without  difference.  The  other  I,  or 
Individuality,  is  identified  with  Nothingness  or  the  Evil, 
because  it  is  discontinuiti/  of  the  same  universal  essence ; 
its  badness  is  nothing  but  this  discontinuity,  this  interrup- 
tion or  breaking  up  of  the  universal  essence  of  pure  knowing 
by  the  empty  arithmetical  difference  of  pure  number ;  the 
very  "reduplication  of  self-consciousness  "  is  evil  in  itself; 
only  the  pure  One  is  good. 

In  these  determinations,  the  Aristotelian  Paradox,  rip- 
ened into  the  Hegelian  Paradox,  betrays  its  radical  insuffi- 
ciency in  this  ultimate  confounding  of  the  great  ideas  of 
Good  and  Evil.  The  true  Good  is  the  identity  in  difference 
of  real  universality  and  real  individuality,  as  the  organic 
self-harmonyy  not  the  pure  undifferentiated  continuity,  of 
the  Absolute  I;  and  the  only  Evil  would  be  the  loss  of 
either  element  through  disharmony,  disproportion,  disrup- 
tion, or  complete  extinction.  But  in  HegeVs  "1  =  1"  as 
Pure  Universality  =  Pure  Individuality,  that  is,  as  he  him- 
self explains  the  words.  Good  =  Evil,  we  see  the  error 
brought  to  self-refutation.  It  brings  out  the  essential  fals- 
ity of  the  "  I  =  I "  as  "  expression  of  self-consciousness  in 
its  purity;"  for  self-consciousness  is  not  and  cannot  be 
**pure,"  that  is,  a  universal  without  units  (§§  60,  71).  The 
sign  of  equality  falsifies  self-consciousness  by  separating 
the  universal  and  its  units,  its  universality  and  its  individ- 
uality, its  rational  element  and  its  empirical  element.  The 
true  expression  of  self-consciousness  is  the  "  I  know  myself 


lui 


in  each  and  all  of  my  conscious  states  "  (§  59)  ;  for  here 
the  two  elements  are  in  no  degree  separated  or  even 
equated,  but  united  in  organic  self-harmony.  The  unity  of 
the  organism  cannot  be  set  over  against  the  multiplicity  of 
the  organs,  whether  as  equal  or  as  unequal;  for  each  is 
possible  only  through  the  other,  each  conditions  the  other, 
and  neither  can  be  or  be  thought  in  isolation,  even  as 
member  of  an  equation.  The  organic  constitution  is  the 
condition  of  all  life ;  the  Living  I  must  live  in  organic  self- 
harmony,  one  in  many  and  many  in  one.  Hegelianism  de- 
pends absolutely,  however,  on  the  truth  of  the  equation, 
"I  =  I,"  as  the  essence  of  the  Begriffdes  Begriffs ;  which 
equation  here  refutes  itself  in  its  equivalent  equation,  Good 
=  Evil  — both  Good  and  Evil  being  buried  in  the  depths  of 
the  One  Divine  as  the  Appearing  God. 

If  further  refutation  were  needed,  it  would  be  found  in 
the  violence  of  the  hypostasis  by  which  the  two  abstract 
determinations,  empty  arithmetical  universality  abstracted 
from  the  real  genus  or  species,  and  empty  arithmetical  indi- 
viduality abstracted  from  the  real  specimen,  are  personified 
as  two  conscious  I 's  (beide  Ich\  and  equated  in  the  "I  =  I." 
It  is  enough  to  point  this  out,  without  enlarging  upon  it 
unnecessarily. 

§  142.  But  the  absolute  collapse  of  the  Hegelian  Par- 
adox that  "the  I  is  the  We,  and  the  We  is  the  I,"  lies 
in  its  loss  of  both  I  and  We  through  its  unintended  re- 
duction of  both  to  the  It.  In  the  equation,  "  I  =  I," 
each  member  is  made  to  vanish  into  the  mere  sign  of 
equality,  in  the  mere  "  =  "  as  a  ''relation:'  But  a  re- 
lation as  such  is  not  an  I  at  all ;  it  is  neither  more  nor  less 
than  an  It. 

This  reduction  of  the  I  to  a  "relation,"  and  therefore  to 
an  It,  is  the  explicit  and  literal  teaching  of  HegePs  expla- 
nation of  the  Absolute  Spirit,  as  already  translated  in  §  137 : 
"The  two  determinations  [of  universality  and  individuality 
as  beide  Ich']  are  the  knowing  pure  notions,  whose  determi- 
nation itself  is  to  know  immediately,  or  whose  relation  [the 


y\\ 


304 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  HEGEL 


305 


italics  are  Hegel's]  and  opposition  is  the  I."  ^  That  is,  "  the 
I "  is  itself  the  mere  relation  of  opposition  between  univer- 
sality and  individuality,  as  the  two  I  *s  of  the  equation,  "  I 
=  I."  They  are  these  absolute  opposites  for  each  other, 
but  not  for  themselves ;  and  for  that  very  reason  they  are 
conscious  of  each  other,  but  not  self -conscious.  It  is  through 
the  inward  motion  of  the  opposition,  as  the  self-determin- 
ing activity  of  the  Begriff,  that  self-consciousness  originates 
in  it.  For  the  opposition  itself  is  the  indiscrete  continuity 
and  equality  of  the  I  with  itself;  each  opposite /or  itself  is 
the  whole  opposition,  which  contradicts,  however,  the  uni- 
versality of  each;  and  this  contradiction  can  be  removed 
only  by  each  annulling  itself  in  the  opposition,  and  by  both 
thus  returning  to  the  unity  of  the  one  Pure  Self,  the  Real 
I,  the  universal  consciousness  of  itself  in  its  absolute  oppo- 
site, and  thereby  the  perfectly  universal  Self-Knowing. 
The  Yes  by  which  the  two  I's  thus  annul  themselves  as  op- 
posites, abandon  their  opposed  existence,  and  transform  the 
opposition  into  reconciliation,  is  the  existence  of  the  Two 
I's  as  One  I,  the  single  self-certainty  of  the  Appearing 
God. 

Now,  in  all  the  bewildering  complexity  and  subtilty  of 
this  motion  of  the  Begriff,  "  the  I "  remains  throughout  a 
mere  «  relation  "  of  "  two  I's  "  in  the  « I  =  I."  If  the  "  two 
I's"  abide  as  two,  "the  I"  abides  only  as  the  "  =  ."  But, 
if  the  "  two  I's  "  disappear  as  two,  "  the  I "  disappears  with 
the  "  =  ."  For  the  relation  abides  or  disappears  with  the 
terms.  In  either  case,  "the  I"  is  identical  with  the 
mere  "relation"  of  equality,  out  of  which  no  logical  or 
speculative  adroitness  can  educe,  conjure,  or  coax  any- 
thing more  than  an  It.  All  in  vain  does  Hegel  strive  to 
elicit  a  single  "  Pure  Self "  or  a  single  "  Real  I "  out  of 
a  "reconciling  Fes."  The  relation  of  "mutual  recogni- 
tion," the  relation  of  "  opposition,"  the  relation  of  "recon- 

1  "Beide  Bestimmtheiten  sind  also  die  wissenden  reinen  Begriffe,  deren 
Bestimmtheit  selbst  unmittelbar  Wissen  oder  deren  Verhodtniss  und 
Oegensatz  das  Ich  ist,"    (Phanoraenologie,  Werke,  II.  507.) 


cihation,"  —  these   relations,   like    every  other    relation, 
remain  obstinately  conditioned  on  two  terms ;   change  as 
they  may,  they  cannot  escape  the  necessity  of  two  terms, 
or  reduce  the  two  to  one,  or  evoke  out  of  the  two  a  third 
The  "reconciling   Fe^"  is  a  brilliant  coruscation  of  rhet^ 
one  or  poetry,  perhaps,  but  it  serves  no  logical  or  specu- 
lative purpose  except  to  mislead.     For  the  reconciliation 
between  the  two  I's  is  nothing  but  a  relation  of  agreement 
between  '^Yes"on  this  side  and  "Yes"  on  that  side,  a 
mere  treaty  of  alliance.     It  is  not  one  Yes,  but  two  Yeses, 
the  voices  of  two  self-consciousnesses  (if  mere  universality 
and   individuality  may  be  hypostasized  as  beide  Ich  or 
Geister),  but  not  the  voice  of  one.    A  duet  cannot  become 
a  solo.    Manifestly,  therefore,  since  there  is  here,  by  He- 
gePs  own  showing,  nothing  but  a  relation  of  agreement  be- 
tween two  Yeses  out  of  which  to  constitute  "  the  I "  as  a 
single  self-consciousness,  —  since  "the  reconciling  Yes  in 
which  both  I*s  abandon  their  opposed  existence  "  may  be 
the  death  of  their  own  existence,  but  by  no  means  the 
birth  of  another,  —  and  since  no  mere  relation  of  reconcili- 
ation, no  mere  relation  as  such,  can  either  be  or  become  a 
self-consciousness  as  such,  —  it  follows  that  HegePs  Abso- 
lute Spirit,  when  so  generated,  is  not  at  ail  an  absolute  I, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  as  confessedly  a  mere  "relation," 
nothing  but  an  Absolute  It.    The  "universality"  and  the 
"  individuality "  hypostasized   in  vain  as  Geister  or  beide 
Ich  (disembodied  ghosts  of  the  species  and  the  specimen), 
remain  separate  and  unidentified  abstractions  ;  the  One  re- 
mains the   One,  and  the   Many  remains  the   Many;  and 
the  modernized  Greek  problem  remains  unsolved  by  the 
"1  =  1"  of  the    Begriffsphilosophie, 

§  143.  Thus  the  continued  equation  of  the  Hegelian 
Paradox,  the  I  =  the  We  =  the  Species  =  the  Reason  = 
the  Spirit,  requires  to  be  still  further  continued  and  com- 
pleted by  one  additional  member :  the  I  =  the  We  =  the 
Species  =  the  Reason  =  the  Spirit  =  the  It,  The  whole 
stream  of  personality  loses  itself  and  disappears  in  the  limit- 

VOL.  I.  —  20 


806 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


less  marsh  of  impersonality.  All  the  endless  iteration  and 
reiteration  of  the  magic  words,  "  pure  self-consciousness," 
"pure  self,"  " pure  I,"  ultimate  in  the  concept  of  pure  un- 
consciousness or  pure  selflessness  as  the  It.  In  other  words, 
"  pure  thought "  proves  itself  unable  to  think  either  the  I  or 
the  We ;  for  it  deliberately  excludes,  as  merely  empirical, 
all  those  unitary  states  of  consciousness  without  which  a 
really  universal  self-consciousness  is  impossible,  and  there- 
fore inconceivable,  and  erases  all  conceptual  distinction 
between  the  I  and  the  We  by  its  traditional  but  discredited 
Aristotelian  principle  of  the  conceptual  indifference  of  the 
species  and  the  specimen.  It  is  in  the  Hegelian  Paradox 
that  the  concept-philosophy  culminates,  and  not  in  the 
dialectical  method,  as  speculative  deduction  of  pure  cate- 
gories and  eternal  self-motion  of  the  Begriff ;  for  this 
method  is  a  mere  mannerism,  and  an  unscientific,  unnatural, 
intensely  artificial  manner  at  that,  while  the  Begriff  itself 
is  lost  by  self-extinction  when  its  Absolute  Spirit  ends  in 
an  Absolute  It.  The  supreme  test  of  any  and  every  phi- 
losophy lies  in  their  ability  or  inability  to  think  the  I  and 
the  We  as  they  are  in  themselves  and  in  their  interrelations  ; 
and  the  falsest  of  all  possible  answers  is  the  Hegelian 
Paradox,  confounding  them  as  absolutely  indistinguisli- 
able.  Any  method  of  which  this  is  the  necessary  out- 
come, as  final  unity  or  identity  of  process  and  content, 
is  self-exploded ;  and  the  famous  mot  of  Louis  XIV, 
^^Viltat  c'est  moi,^^  although  long  antedating  Hegel,  was 
the  historical  self-explosion  of  the  Hegelian  Paradox.  For 
history  reduced  it  to  absurdity  in  the  English,  Ameri- 
can, and  French  Kevolutions,  and  Hegel  (notwithstanding 
Fischer)  was  justly  considered  the  philosopher  of  the 
Restoration  as  Reaction. 

§  144.  The  supreme  interest  of  the  world,  and  for  that 
reason  the  supreme  interest  of  philosophy,  centre  alike  in 
Personality  :  not  on  the  principle  that  "  the  I  is  the  We, 
and  the  We  is  the  I,"  but  on  the  principle  that  the  I  is  in 
the  We,  and  the   We  is  in  the  /,  whereby  the  finite  I  and 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  HEGEL 


307 


the  infinite  I  are  mediated  by  the  finite  We.     Elsewhere 
we  have  shown  that  there  are  but  three  known  types  of 
real  being,  the  machine,  the  organism,  and  the  person ;  that 
the  machine  is  known  through  the  organism,  and  the  or- 
ganism through  the  person,  and  in  no  other  way  ;  that  man 
is  the  identity  in  difference  of  all  three  in  virtue  of  his 
personality ;  that  the  principle  of  the  machine  is  the  law 
of  cause  and  effect  (causality),  of  the  organism  the  law  of 
end  and  means  (finality  or  teleology),  and  of  the  person 
the  law  of  real  and  ideal  (ethicality) ;  that  all  three  types 
of  being  are  realized  self-harmoniously  in  the  person,  and 
all  three  principles  of  being  in  personality  as  ethicality ; 
and  that  personality  as  ethicality  is  thus  the  supreme  and 
all-inclusive  principle  of  real  being,  so  far  as  real  being  is 
known  to  human  thought.^    An  examination  of  what  Hegel 
teaches  about  personality,  therefore,  will  conclude  what  we 
have  to  say  in  this  chapter.     A  few  more  short  but  highly 
representative   extracts  will   suffice  (again  preserving  his 
own  italics). 


(1)  *'  /  Is  only  a  universal,  like  now,  here,  or  this  in  general. 
I  mean,  to  be  sure,  an  individual  I ;  but  just  as  little  as  I  can  say 
what  I  mean  in  the  case  of  now  or  here,  just  so  little  can  I  say  it  in 
the  case  of  /.  When  I  say  this,  here,  now,  or  an  individual,  I  say 
all  thises,  all  herea,  nows,  individuals;  just  so,  when  I  say  /,  this  in- 
dividual I,  I  say  in  general  all  Va.  Everybody  is  that  which  I  say  : 
/,  this  individual  I.  If  this  demand  is  imposed  upon  science  as  its 
test,  by  which  it  absolutely  could  not  abide,  to  deduce,  construct, 
find  a  priori  (or  however  it  may  be  phrased)  a  so-called  this  thing 
or  a  this  man,  it  is  reasonable  that  the  demand  should  say  what  this 
thing  or  what  this  I  it  means  ;  but  to  say  this  is  impossible.**  2 

(2)  **  Nature  does  not  bring  the  vovs  to  self -consciousness;  man 
is  the  first  to  duplicate  himself  so  as  to  be  the  universal  for  the 
universal.  This  is  the  case  first  of  all  when  man  knows  himself 
as  /.  When  I  say  /,  I  mean  myself  as  this  individual  and  com- 
pletely determined  person.    Yet  in  fact  I  express  thereby  nothing 

1  The  Way  out  of  Agnosticism,  Boston,  1890. 
8  Phanomenologie,  Werke,  II.  78. 


308 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


particular  about  myself.  Everybody  else  is  7,  too;  and  when  I 
describe  myself  as  7,  it  is  true  that  I  mean  myself,  this  individual ; 
yet  at  the  same  time  I  express  something  which  is  perfectly  uni- 
versal. /  is  the  pure  being-for-self  (FUrsichseyn)  in  which  every 
particular  is  negated  and  cancelled,  —  that  ultimate,  simple,  and 
pure  element  of  consciousness.  We  can  say,  I  and  Thought  are 
the  same;  or,  more  precisely,  I  is  Thought  as  a  Thinking  [ein  Den- 
kendes  =  chose  qui  pense,  res  cogitans].  What  I  have  in  my  con- 
sciousness, that  is  for  me.  /  is  this  vacuum,  the  receptacle  for 
all  and  everything,  for  which  all  is,  and  which  preserves  all  in  it- 
self. Every  man  is  a  whole  world  of  representations  which  are 
buried  in  the  night  of  the  I.  Thus  I,  then,  is  the  universal  in 
which  there  is  abstraction  from  every  particular,  but  in  which  at 
the  same  time  all  lies  concealed.*'  * 

(3)  "  When  individuality  is  understood  as  I,  as  personality^ 
in  80  far  not  as  an  empirical  I  or  as  a  particular  personality, 
especially  when  the  personality  of  God  is  present  to  consciousness, 
then  we  speak  of  a  personality  which  is  pure^  that  is,  universal 
in  itself.  Such  a  personality  is  an  idea,  and  belongs  to  thought 
alone."  « 

(4)  "  Tlie  principle  of  personality  is  universality."* 

§  145.  The  interpretation  of  language  as  such  which 
Hegel,  by  implication  sufficiently  clear,  gives  in  the  first 
of  the  foregoing  passages  is  essentially  that  which  is  at- 
tributed to  Talleyrand :  namely,  that  language  is  a  device 
for  concealing  thought.  What  I  mean,  I  cannot  say ;  what 
I  say  is  not  what  I  mean.  To  be  sure,  Hegel  applies  this 
interpretation  to  language  so  far  only  as  it  strives  to  say 
the  individual ;  every  word,  like  "  I,"  is  "  only  a  universal  " 
—  says  the  universal  alone.  This  notion  of  language,  as 
incapable  of  expressing  anything  but  the  pure  universal, 
follows  necessarily  from  the  Aristotelian  Paradox,  and  is 
but  one  more  illustration  of  the  fact  that  Hegelianism  is 

1  Encyklopadie,  Werke,  VI.  47,  48 ;  cf.  37. 

2  Ibid.  VI.  129. 

«  "Was  dem  Sklaven  fchlt,  das  ist  die  Anerkennung  seiner  Person- 
lichkeit;  das  Princip  der  Perstinhchkeit  aber  ist  die  Allgcmeinheit. " 
{Ibid.  VI.  322.) 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  HEGEL 


309 


modernized  Aristotelianism.  For,  if  the  toSc  rt,  or  the 
single  thing  as  such,  is  neither  real  nor  intelligible  except 
through  its  ctSos  to  cVoV,  or  the  pure  universal  which  is  in- 
herent in  it,  —  if  the  individual  as  such,  to  Kaff  l/catrroi/,  is 
inconceivable,  and  only  the  universal,  to  Ka^oAov,  can  be 
conceived,  —  it  follows  of  course  that  the  word,  as  expres- 
sion  of  the  concept,  can  express  nothing  but  the  universal. 
Hegel,  therefore,  is  entirely  consistent  with  himself  and 
his  master  in  his  view  that  language  cannot  be  so  used 
as  to  say  the  individual  —  to  say  "  I ''  in  any  other  than  a 
strictly  universal  sense. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  this  view  is  untenable  because  it 
belies   the   nature   and  contradicts  the  facts  of  language 
itself.     The  jmre  %miversal,  the  universal  without  any  tmits, 
cannot  be  thought^  and  for  that  reason  cannot  he  said.     If 
any  one  thinks  he  thinks   it,  it  is  only  in  virtue  of  un- 
suspected empirical  elements.     In  proof  of  this  statement, 
we  cite  Hegel  himself  as  an  unwilling  witness.     The  reiner 
^f^Sffiffy  in  its  highest   form   as  the  Absolute  Spirit,  has 
just  been  shown  to  be  the  equation  of  "I''  as   Universality 
with  "  I "  as  Individuality  ;   that  is,  the  equation  of  the 
pure  universal  as  "  pure  continuity,"  or  the  Pure  One,  with 
its   pure  individuals  as  "absolute   discontinuity,"  or  the 
Pure  Many.     But  the  Pure  One,  equated  with  the  Pure 
Many  as  their  infinite  "  Totality,"  ^  is  of  necessity  the  Pure 
Many  as  the  Totality  of  Many  Finite  Ones,  or  pure  indi- 
viduals (ofioia,  d8Ld<j>opa).     "  Pure   individuality,"  however, 
has  been  proved  to  be  neither  more  nor  less  than  the  empty 
arithmetical  unity  of  to  apLOfi(^  ev;  and  this  arithmetical 
unity,  be  it  never  so  empty,  has  been  proved  to  be  neither 
more  nor  less  than  empirical  individuality.     (§  140.)     Of 
two  things,  therefore,  one  is  necessarily  true :  (1)  if  the 
"1  =  1"  is  really  pure  from  aU  individuality,  as  it  must  be 
if  it  is  "  pure,"  it  becomes  "  0  =  0 " ;  the  I  itself  disap- 
pears in  identity  without  difference,  the  universal  without 

1  Encyklopiidie,  Werke,  VI.  315:  * '  Der  Begritf  ist  das  Freie  .  .  .  uml 
iat  Totalitat  .  .  ." 


310 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  HEGEL 


311 


any  units,  which  is  unreal,  unthinkable,  and  for  that  reason 
unspeakable ;  and,  when  I  say  "  I,"  I  say  nothing  at  all ; 
or,  (2)  if  the  "1  =  1"  contains  any  individuality  whatever, 
even  in  the  form  of  the  empty  arithmetical  unity,  then, 
when  I  say  "  I,"  I  say  the  individual  as  well  a«  the  uni- 
versal. In  either  case,  Hegel's  view  is  utterly  untenable. 
If  it  is  true  that  "/is  only  a  universal,"  the  word  means 
nothing  and  says  nothing ;  but,  if  /  is  a  unit-universal, 
then  the  word  says  what  it  means  and  means  what  it 
says. 

It  avails  nothing  to  urge  the  shallow  truism  that  /  is  a 
word  of  universal  application,  —  that  "everybody  is  that 
which  I  say  :  /,  this  individual  I"  Words  are  universal  rep- 
resentatives, but  what  they  represent  in  any  given  instance 
is  the  meaning  intended  or  the  meaning  understood  (speaker 
and  hearer  are  the  factors  in  all  speech).  They  can  repre- 
sent nothing  else.  Every  word  is  a  unit-universal,  a  uni- 
versal symbol  applied  to  a  particulai-  case,  a  saying  of 
"something,"  which  is  itself  of  necessity  a  unit-universal; 
every  word,  therefore,  both  means  and  utters  the  particu- 
larity as  well  as  the  universality.  It  must  say  "some- 
thing" or  "nothing."  Otherwise  speech  would  cease  to 
be  speech,  and  all  communication  of  meanings  would 
become  impossible.  Hegel's  reasoning  here  is  sophistical 
to  the  last  degree.  What  /  says  is  determined,  not  alone 
by  the  universality  of  its  application  as  a  mere  word,  but 
equally  by  the  individuality  of  the  speaker  who  applies 
it  to  himself  and  himself  alone;  it  must  and  does  mean 
and  say  /u'm,  and  no  other.  This  necessity  of  determining 
it  by  individuality  of  application  as  well  as  by  universal- 
ity of  applicability  constitutes  the  very  possibility  of  lan- 
guage as  such;  without  it,  nothing  whatever  is  said  or 
could  be  said. 

It  is  absolutely  untrue,  then,  that  "  /is  only  a  universal," 
and  the  untruth  is  apparent  in  a  test  case.  If  the  state- 
ment were  true,  it  would  follow  that,  since  "  the  I  is  the 
We  and  the  We  is  the  I,"  all  I's  are  one  and  the  same,  in- 


distinguishable as  one  and  the  same  pure  universal;  all 
difference  between  one  I  and  another  I,  even  empty  numer- 
ical difference,  vanishes  absolutely  in  this  universality,  if 
it  is  indeed  pure.  Consequently,  the  relation  between 
speaker  and  hearer,  if  thought,  must  be  that  of  absolute 
identity,  and,  if  said,  will  become  the  judgment,  "I  am 
You."  But  nothing  could  be  clearer  to  either  of  them  than 
that  this  is  a  false  judgment,  and  that  the  only  true  judg- 
ment is,  "  I  am  7iot  You."  That  not  is  the  absolute  dis- 
proof that  "/  is  only  a  universal" — absolute  proof  that 
"  I "  and  "  You  "  are  not  only  each  a  unit-universal  in  itself, 
but  also,  taken  together,  two  unit-universals  which  cannot 
be  identified  as  indistinguishably  one.  That  is  what  the 
true  judgment  means,  and  that  is  what  it  says.  Hegel's 
assertion,  therefore,  that  I  may  mean  the  individual,  but 
must  say  the  universal  only,  falls  to  the  ground  —  goes  to 
wreck  in  that  not.  I  can  say  neither  the  pure  universal 
nor  the  pure  individual :  I  can  only  mean,  and  I  can  only 
say,  the  unit-universal. 

§  146.  When,  in  the  second  passage  translated  above, 
Hegel  says  that,  "when  I  say  /,  I  mean  myself  as  this 
individual  and  completely  determined  person,"  the  state- 
ment is  unexceptionably  true.  But,  when  he  adds,  "yet  in 
fact  I  express  nothing  particular  about  myself,"  the  addi- 
tion is  wholly  untrue;  for  what  I  express  is  my  own 
particularity,  as  an  absolutely  unique  person,  and  nothing 
could  be  more  particular  than  that.  If  HegePs  notion  of 
personality  as  the  pure  "  I  =  I,"  the  pure  self-consciousness 
stripped  of  all  empirical  conscious  states,  were  true  to  the 
fact,  his  addition  would  be  true,  too.  But,  if  the  notion 
of  personality  as  "I  know  myself  in  each  and  all  of  my 
conscious  states  as  One  of  the  We,"  is  true  to  the  fact 
(§  59),  his  addition  is  completely  untrue ;  for  each  of  my 
conscious  states  is  particular  and  unique  in  my  whole 
consciousness,  and  T  myself  am  particular  and  unique  as 
one,  and  no  other  one,  in  tlie  We.  To  "pure  thought" 
as  the  Hegolian  concept^]ihi]oso|)liy,  "/  is  the  pure  being- 


312 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  HEGEL 


for-self  in  which  every  particular  is  negated  and  cancelled 
—  that  ultimate,  simple,  and  pure  element  of  conscious- 
ness ; "  which  is  nothing  but  a  Pure  It.  But  to  scientific 
thought  as  knowledge  of  the  real  world  in  history,  and  so 
in  the  history  of  philosophy,  /  is  the  unduplicated  self- 
conscious  being  of  my  real  person,  not  for  myself  alone  (im- 
manent end),  but  just  as  much  for  the  common  being  of 
all  in  the  organism  of  persons  as  the  human  race  (exient 
end)  ;  which  is  a  Real  I  in  a  Real  We.  It  is  enough  to 
contrast  the  two  notions  in  outline,  and  leave  them  so  for 
the  present. 

§  147.  In  the  third  and  fourth  extracts  above,  Hegel 
indicates  with  precision  his  conception  of  personality, 
freely  and  more  fully  restated  as  follows :  — 

1.  Individuality  as  such  is  simple  singleness,  the  empty 
arithmetical  unity  with  no  empirical  determinations,  the 
numerically  one  continent  of  the  universal  essence  as 
species  with  no  content  of  individual  difference  as  specimen 
(toSc  Tt  as  only  to  dpLOfiw  cv),  pure  specific  essence  with  no 
reific  essence,  the  pure  one  which  is  also  pure  universal. 

2.  Individuality  as  /  is  the  single  personality,  not  as  the 
empirical  I  with  its  merely  perceptive  content,  the  "  suc- 
cession of  perceptions  "  which  is  its  "  particular  "  or  "  abso- 
lutely accidental  side,"  but  rather  as  the  pure  I  with  its 
conceptual  content  of  "  I  =  I,"  the  specific  essence  as 
indifferently  I  or  We,  the  pure  arithmetical  unit  of  self- 
consciousness  as  such.  Personality  is  single  but  pure  the 
pure  one  which  is  in  itself  pure  universal. 

3.  Such  a  pure  personality  is  that  of  God,  the  Abso- 
lute One  which  is  the  Absolute  Universal,  the  "1  =  1" 
as  " Universality  =  Individuality,'^  the  "absolute  Spirit" 
which  is  the  "  relation "  of  mutual  recognition,  mutual 
opposition,  and  mutual  reconciliation  of  these  two  I*s  in 
the  "reconciling  Fes."  But  it  is  real  only  as  an  idea 
(Gedanke),  and  has  no  existence  except  in  thought. 

4.  The  principle   of   personality  is  universality that 

is,  universality  which  admits  no  other  individuality  than 


313 


empty  arithmetical  unity,  the  pure  one  which  is  in  itself 
the  pure  universal  (1)  as  pure  individuals  in  "absolute 
discontinuity "  of  the  universal  essence,  and  (2)  as  unity 
of  all  the  pure  individuals  in  "unbroken  continuity"  of 
the  universal  essence.  (How  the  many  pure  individuals 
of  the  "  absolute  discontinuity "  can  become  the  one  pure 
universal  of  the  "  unbroken  continuity  "  without  sacrificing 
their  empty  arithmetical  unity  remains  unexplained.) 

This  is  HegePs  best  endeavor  to  conceive  "  pure  person- 
ality "— personality  which  shall  be  "perfectly  universal," 
"the  universal   in  which  there  is  abstraction   from  every 
particular,  but  in  which  at  the  same  time  all  lies  con- 
cealed," "  the  pure  being-for-self  in  which  every  particular 
is  negated  and  annulled  —  that  ultimate,  simple,  and  pure 
element  of  consciousness."     But  this  best  endeavor  was 
from  the  first  a  foreordained  failure,  not  from  any  lack  of 
subtilty  or    speculative    genius   in   Hegel,   but  from   the 
intrinsic    impossibility   of   thinking   the    absolutely  self- 
contradictory  and  conceiving  the  inconceivable.     He  wants 
to  conceive  a  universal  in  which  there  shall  be  no  particu- 
lars, yet  in  which  there  shall  be  pure  numerical  units  as 
pure  particularitf/  ;  whereas  all  units  qua  units  are  impure 
(empirical)  and  themselves 'particulars,  and  particularity  as 
such  is  synonymous  with  impurity.     He  wants  to  conceive 
a  universal  in  which  "  unbroken  continuity,"  as  pure  uni- 
versality, shall  be  equated  with  "  absolute  discontinuity," 
as  pure  individuality;  that  is,  in  which  no-particulars  shall 
be  equated   with   all-particulars,    no-individuals   with  all- 
individuals.     He  wants,  in  short,  to  conceive  a  pure  uni- 
versal which  yet  shall  not  be  a  pure  universal,  and  the 
result  is,  not  a  pure  concept,  but  no  concept  at  all.    For 
his   "1  =  1"  is  construed  as   "  pure  universality  =  pure 
individuality,"  i.  e,  "pure  identity  =  pure  difference,"  or 
« identity    without    difference  =  difference   without    iden- 
tity," which   is  an  irremediable   self-contradiction  and  a 
speculative  absurdity.     If  it  had  been  construed  as  "uni- 
versality in  individuality  =  individuality  in  universality," 


• 

) 

/I 


31^ 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  HEGEL 


315 


i,  e,  "identity  in  difference  =  difference  in  identity,"  it 
would  have  expressed  at  least  the  possibility  of  considering 
the  real  unit-universal  in  its  twofold  aspect,  (1)  in  the 
aspect  of  its  universality  as  a  rational  whole  of  seriated 
and  empirically  known  self-conscious  states,  and  (2)  in  the 
aspect  of  its  individuality  or  unity  as  one  of  the  We ;  but 
this  would  have  been  the  expression,  not  at  all  of  the 
impossible  Pure  /,  but  of  the  Real  or  Rational- Empirical  I 
(§§  60-71)  —  recognition,  therefore,  of  the  necessary  truth 
that  the  empirical  consciousness  and  the  rational  self- 
consciousness  reciprocally  condition  each  other,  and  that 
neither  one  nor  the  other  can  either  be  or  be  thought 
alone.  But  this  recognition  would  have  been  recognition 
of  the  absolute  impossibility  of  "absolute  idealism"  as 
reines  Denken, 

It  is  no  escape  from  this  self-contradiction  in  HegePs 
outcome,  as  the  equation  of  universality  with  individuality 
in  the  pure  universal  as  Absolute  Spirit,  to  plead  that,  in 
the  "  pure  individuality,"  all  the  individuals  or  particulars 
as  such  are  annulled  (aufgehohen),  and  that  the  "  pure  in- 
dividuality "  is  retained  solely  as  an  absorbed  result.  For 
individuality  or  particularity,  however  pure,  is  nothing  but 
the  specific  common  essence  of  individuals  or  particulars  as 
such^  inseparable  from  them  as  they  are  inseparable  from 
it;  whence  it  follows  that,  if  the  individuals  or  particu- 
lars are  annulled,  the  individuality  or  the  particularity 
must  be  annulled  with  them  —  cannot  be  retained  with- 
out them,  just  as  the  idea  of  motion  cannot  be  retained 
without  the  idea  of  that  which  moves.  But  to  annul  the 
individuality  would  destroy  one  member  of  the  "1  =  1" 
and  so  break  up  the  whole  Begriff  in  "pure  thought" 
itself.  In  order  to  avoid  this,  Hegel  has  no  option  but 
to  retain  the  "pure  individuality"  as  a  member  of  his 
equation,  and  therewith  the  individuals  or  particulars,  as 
at  least  pure  arithmetical  units.  But  he  takes  his  revenge 
upon  them  for  this  obstinate  intrusion  by  identifying  them 
as  a  mass  with  "the  Evil,"  while  the  "pure  universality" 


he  identifies  with  "  Duty  "  or  the  Good.  There  is  immense 
significance  in  this.  For  he  thus  buries  ethical  dualism  in 
the  very  heart  of  his  "  pure  personality,"  irreconcilable 
discord  in  the  "  personality  of  God,"  even  if  this  has  no 
existence,  as  he  says,  except  in  thought ;  and  his  Geister, 
his  beide  Ich,  whose  two  concurrent  Yeses,  as  a  mere  treaty, 
constitute  the  '*  reconciling  Fes"  which,  even  in  thought, 
is  the  only  existence  of  the  Two  I's  as  One  I  {Daseyn  des 
zur  Zweiheit  ausgedehnten  Ichs\  would  be  most  fittingly 
named  as  Ormuzd  and  Ahriman,  if  not  as  Jehovah  and 
Satan.* 

§  148.  This  ethical  dualism  in  the  "  personality  of  God," 
however,  would  possess  more  significance  than  it  does,  if  it 
were  not  so  evidently  formal  rather  than  ethical,  mathemati- 
cal rather  than  spiritual.  For  it  reduces  Good  and  Evil 
themselves  to  mere  relations  of  pure  number,  — to  empty 
arithmetical  unity  ("unbroken  continuity")  as  related  to 
empty  arithmetical  multiplicity  ("absolute  discontinuity") 
in  an  impersonal  It,  as  their  mere  "  relation  "  of  equality, 
recognition,  opposition,  and  reconciliation.  HegePs  "  pure 
personality  "  thus  reduces  itself  to  absolute  impersonality. 
It  consists  in  excluding  from  real  personality  as  it  is  ex- 
l^rienced  ("  I  know  myself  in  each  and  all  of  my  conscious 
states  as  One  of  the  We  ")  every  element  which  is  derived 
from  experience,  —  every  element,  therefore,  which  in- 
volves conduct  or  the  laws  of  conduct,  the  essence  of  all 
real  ethics.  It  is  nothing  but  abstraction  carried  to  the 
last  limit  of  attenuation,  to  the  very  verge  of  absolute 
nothingness,  since  its  only  content  is  the  absolutely  barren 
tautology,  "1  =  1."    If  Good  and  Evil,  moreover,  when 

1  It  is,  of  course,  not  difficult  to  discern  in  Hegel's  notion  of  "pure 
personality "  as  One  I  in  Two  I's  an  obscure  allusion  to  the  doctrine  of 
the  Trinity—  "universality "  as  the  Father,  "individuality"  as  the  Son, 
and  the  "  reconciling  Yes  "  as  the  Holy  Spirit.  But  the  identification  of 
"individuality"  with  "the  Evil"  reduces  the  whole  notion  to  utter  con- 
fusion and  chaos.  "  Nur  die  Dreieinigkeit  ist  also  die  Bestimmung  Gottes 
als  Geist,  Geist  ist  ohne  diese  Bestimmung  ein  leeres  Wort."  (Philosophie 
der  Religion,  Werke,  XL  22.) 


r 


^ 


316 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


II 


identified  respectively  with  "pure  universality  "  and  "pure 
individuality,"  had  any  positive  ethical  significance  what- 
ever, such  an  identification  would  give  them  nothing  but 
a  false  significance ;  for  ethical  good  and  evil  concern  the 
Real  I  alone,  into  which,  as  unit-universal,  both  uni- 
versality and  individuality  enter  as  constitutive  factors, 
and  by  which,  as  real  person  in  the  organism  of  persons, 
good  and  evil  must  be  found  in  practical  truth  or  untruth 
to  the  organic-personal  constitution  of  the  We. 

So  far  as  HegePs  "  pure  personality  "  is  concerned,  then, 
its  "  pure  universality  *'  and  "  pure  individuality,"  by  his 
own  account,  possess  only  mathematical  significance,  and 
his  "Good"  and  "Evil"  are  (in  this  connection)  words 
without  ethical  or  spiritual  meaning  of  any  sort.  But  in 
another  aspect  they  possess  a  profound  philosophical  sig- 
nificance quite  unintended  by  Hegel  himself.  His  effort  to 
eliminate  all  empirical  elements  from  the  I  as  "  pure  person- 
ality," and  his  supposition  that  he  has  done  this  by  reduc- 
ing empirical  individuality  to  the  empty  arithmetical  unity 
of  "pure  individuality"  as  one  of  the  three  essential 
moments  of  the  Pure  Notion  of  the  Absolute  Spirit,  when 
in  truth  this  "pure  individuality"  is  itself  unsuspected 
empirical  individuality  to  the  very  last,  reveal  the  utter 
impossibility  of  "pure  thought"  as  such.  The  Hegelian 
Paradox  is  founded  on  the  Aristotelian  Paradox,  and  this 
is  founded  on  the  assumed  impossibility  of  knowing  the 
individual  difference  —  on  the  principle,  therefore,  of  the 
absolute  conceptual  indifference  of  species  and  specimen. 
HegePs  application  of  this  principle  to  the  Absolute  Spirit 
as  the  absolute  conceptual  indifference  of  the  I  and  the  We, 
or  their  absolute  indistinguishableness,  renders  impossible 
any  rational  transition  from  the  one  to  the  other,  any 
rational  comprehension  of  either,  any  true  idea  of  Man,  of 
Nature,  of  God.  This  total  defeat  of  philosophy  as  Begriffs- 
philo Sophie  or  rdnes  Dmken  lay  in  the  essential  nature  of 
its  aim,  not  in  any  defect  of  genius  in  its  great  advocates 
and  formulators;  it  lay  in  the  very  attempt  to  separate 


THE  TRANSITION  IN  HEGEL 


317 


reason  and  experience,  instead  of  recognizing  their  neces- 
sary identity  in  difference ;  and  its  remedy  lies  in  the  law 
of  unit-universals  as  rational  reform  of  the  Aristotelian  and 
Hegelian  Paradoxes.  The  advent  of  Darwinism  was  the 
passing  of  the  Greek-German  concept-philosophy  and  the 
Hegelianism  which  was  its  splendid  culmination. 


END  OF  VOL.  L 


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THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


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PROLEGOMENA  TO  SCIENCE 


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SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


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PROLEGOMENA  TO   SCIENCE 


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FRANCIS  ELLINGWOOD  ABBOT,  Ph.D. 


Knowing  Is  the  measure  of  the  man.    By  how 
mach  we  know,  so  much  we  are. 

Ralph  Waldo  Emkbson. 


The  man  who  knows  not  that  he  knows  not  aught— 
He  is  a  fool  ;  no  light  shall  ever  reach  liim. 
Who  knows  he  knows  not  and  would  fain  be  taught  — 
He  18  but  simple  ;  take  thou  him  and  teach  him. 
But  whoso,  knowing,  knows  not  that  he  knows  — 
He  is  asleep  ;  go  thou  to  him  and  wake  him. 
The  truW  wise  both  knows  and  knows  he  knows  — 
Cleave  thou  to  him  and  never  more  forsake  him. 

Arabian  Proverb, 


IN  TWO   V0LUME3 

Vol.  II 


BOSTON 
LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND  COMPANY 

1906 


Copyrifjhtf  1906, 
By  K.  Stanley  Abbot. 

All  rights  reserved 


Piil.lished  October,  1906 


I 


CONTENTS 

VOLUME  TWO 

Chapter  ^^^^ 

XII.   The  Syllogistic  Must 1 

Xin.   The  Syllogism  in  General:  Nine  Canons  of 

Syllogistic ^^ 

XIV.   The  Syllogism  of  Being 59 

XV.   The  Syllogism  of  Knowledge 92 

XVI.   The  Syllogism  of  Philosophy 132 

XVII.   Philosophical  Method  as  Dialectic  ....  175 

XVlll.   Philosophical  Method  and  System  as  Syllo- 

GISTIC *** 


THE  UNPrERSTTT   PRESS,   CAMBRIDGE,  U.  8.  A. 


TABLES 

Table 
IV.  Critical  Idealism  :  Object  of  Knowledge 

V.   Critical  Realism:   Object  of  Knowledge 
VI.   Synopsis  of  Syllogistic  Philosophy  .     .    . 
VII.   Ontology  as  Ground  of  Epistemology     . 
VIII.   Epistemology  as  Grounded  in  Ontology  . 
IX.   Ethics  as  Grounded  in  Epistemology  .     . 
X.   Philosophy   as   Grounded   in   Absolute    Syllo- 
gistic      ^^^ 

XI.  Philosophy  as  Ground  of  Absolute  Religion    308 


138 
144 
297 
800 
302 
304 


4UU413 


T 


VI 


CONTENTS 


\l 


it 


•  I 


APPENDIX 

Paok 
Fundamental  Philosophemes  :  Original  Plan  of  Five 

Books 

Book     I.    Scientific  Realism ^11 

Book   II.   Constructive  Realism *12 

Book  III.    Critical  Realism »1* 

Book  IV.    Ethical  Realism •!• 

Book  V.   Religious  Realism ^25 


TABLES 

The  Categories  of  Organic  Philosophy 

Categories  of  Being ^29 

Categories  of  Mind '^^ 

Categories  of  Evolution 8^2 

Categories  of  Constitution 333 

Fundamental  Analyses 

I.    Mechanical  Constitution 835 

II.    Organic  Constitution       836 

III.  Personal  Constitution 337 

IV.  Cosmical  Constitution 338 

Universal  Schema  of  Organic  Philosophy 

I.    Organism  of  Human  Knowledge 339 

n.   Organism  of  Human  Life 340 

III.   Organism  of  Divine  Life 342 

INDEX 347 


THE 


SYLLOGISTIC   PHILOSOPHY 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  SYLLOGISTIC  MUST 

§  149.   The  philosophy  of  pure  experience,  as  represented 
by  its  greatest  expositor,  David  Hume,  ingenuously  con- 
fesses its  inability  to  think  the  I  as  person  or  to  form  a 
clear  concept  of  personal   identity.     The  philosophy  of 
pure  reason  or  pure  thought,  as  represented  by  its  greatest 
expositors,  Aristotle,  Kant,  Fichte,  and  Hegel,  has  proved 
its  inability  to  think  the  I  as  person,  because  it  surrenders 
the  individual  difference  in  general  and  the  personal  differ- 
ence in  particular  as  unknowable,  confounds  the  specimen 
with  the  species,  and  degrades  the  personal  I  to  the  im- 
personal   It.     With    Aristotle    himself,    the  Aristotelian 
Paradox  culminates  in  the   imperishable   but  impersonal 
vovs,  —  with  Kant,  in  the  unknown  x,  a  merely  logical 
subject  which  may  or  may  not  be  substance,  —  with  Fichte, 
in  a  mere  self -returning  activity,  a  self-determining  but  in 
itself   unconscious  subject-object,  of  which  personal  self- 
consciousness  or  self-conscious  individuality  appears  as  a 
non-essential  and  fleeting  accident,  —  with  Hegel,  in  a  self- 
determining  notion  of  the  notion,  in  which  the  I  and  the 
We  are  absolutely  indistinguishable  and  both  vanish  as  a 
mere  "relation"  (Verhdltniss)  of  two  contradictory  terms. 
Hume  gives  us  perceptions  without  perception,  units  with- 
out their  necessary  universal,  and  illustrates  the  Irrational 
Antithesis  of  I  and  Not-We  in  its  Empiricist  Form ;  Kant, 
Fichte,  and  Hegel  give  us  pure  self-consciousness  without 
empirical  conscious  states,  the  universal  without  its  neces- 
sary units,  and  illustrate  the  Irrational  Antithesis  of  I  and 

VOi.  II. —  I 


i 

i 


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2 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


Not- We  in  its  Rationalist  Form.  (§  71.)  Hume  represents 
the  Antisthenian  half,  Kant,  Fichte,  and  Hegel  the  Platonic 
half,  of  the  Aristotelian  Paradox  (§  79),  around  which 
philosophy  helplessly  revolved  until  the  rise  of  Darwinism 
in  natural  science.  In  this  complete  failure  of  empiricism 
and  rationalism  to  think  the  I  except  as  the  It,  and  in 
their  consequent  failure  to  effect  a  rational  transition  from 
the  I  to  the  We,  the  philosophy  which  recognizes  the 
necessary  identity  in  difference  of  experience  and  reason 
must  not  decline  this  supreme  task  of  all  philosophy: 
namely,  the  task  of  thinking  the  I  as  person  in  accordance 
with  the  law  of  unit-universal s. 

§  150.  Evolution  is  but  one  aspect  or  factor  in  the  life- 
process  of  the  universe,  the  absolute  unit-universal  in 
Space  and  Time.  The  other  factor  is  involution.  Nothing 
can  evolve  which  does  not  live :  nothing  can  live  which 
does  not  evolve;  evolution  and  life  are  so  far  equivalent 
terms.  This  truth  is  now  too  generally  understood  to 
require  elaboration,  much  less  defence,  in  this  place.  The 
world  as  a  whole  is  no  longer  conceived  as  a  mere  mechan- 
ism, but  as  an  organism,  that  is,  a  machine  which  lives 
and  evolves.  Spencerism,  with  its  vain  attempt  to  con- 
ceive and  formulate  universal  evolution  in  purely  mechan- 
ical terms,  and  therefore  to  ignore  the  immanent,  universal, 
and  necessary  teleology  on  which  all  evolution  itself 
depends,  is  already  out  of  date  at  the  beginning  of  the 
twentieth  century.     (§§  178-183.) 

Evolution  itself,  however,  must  be  contemplated  under 
two  aspects,  as  the  progress  to  actual  consequences  (history), 
and  as  the  regress  to  necessary  conditions  (philosophy). 
Being  in  Space  and  Time  moves  everlastingly  out  of  the 
past  into  the  future  through  the  present.  From  the  stand- 
point of  the  present,  a  Delos-isle  of  Time  between  two 
pseudo-infinitudes  which  in  truth  are  but  the  one  infinite  of 
Eternity,  Thought  may  move  in  two  directions,  forward 
into  the  eternal  differentiation  of  consequences  as  the 
Many,  backward  into  the  eternal  integration  of  conditions 


' 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  MUST  3 

as  the  One.    In  Being,  the  One  and  the  Many  are  distin- 
guishable, but  not  separable  ;  eternal  evolution  of  the  Many 
in  the  One,  eternal  involution  of  the  One  in  the  Many,  — 
that  is  the  entire  self-perpetuating  double-process  of  the 
universe,  so  far  as  known,  of  which  the  current  evolution- 
ism recognizes  only  the  half.     But  in  Thought   two  lines 
are  possible.    From  some  point  of  Time,  arbitrarily  chosen 
in  the  past,  the  line  of  evolution  may  be  followed  down 
empirically  from  some  proximate  origin  as  the  One  (the 
homogeneous)  to  the  present  stage  of  development  as  the 
Many  (the  heterogeneous):  this  is  the  progress  to  actual 
consequences,  as  in  astronomy,  geology,  biology,  psychol- 
ogy, so  far  as  these  are  historical.     Or,  from  the  present 
point  of  Time,  the  line  of  involution   may   be   followed 
back  rationally  from  the  existing  stage  of  development  to 
the  necessary  ultimate  origin,  the   absolute  unity  of  the 
universe  as'the  Absolute  I ;  this  is  the  regress  to  necessary 
conditions,  as  in  the  scientific  philosophy  which  grounds 
epistemology  on  ontology.     (Chapters  XV  and  XVI.)     Is 
such   a  regress   made  possible,  nay,  necessitated,   by  the 
foregoing  reformation  of  the  Aristotelian  Paradox  as  the 
law  of  unit-universals  ?     That  is  the  question  we  are  now 

to  answer. 

§  151.   The  method  of  the  rational  regress  to  conditions 
is  determined  necessarily  by  the  Apriori  of  Being  as  the 
principle  of  individuation.     (§  99.)     That  is,  every  speci- 
men, as  a  unit-universal,  originates,  inheres,  and  is  differ- 
entiated, in  a  higher  unit-universal  as  its  own  species ; 
every  species  similarly  originates,  inheres,  and  is  differen- 
tiated, in  its  own  genus ;  and  so  on  to  the  siimmum  genus. 
If  this  is  a  law  of  scientific  logic  (for  instance,  omne  vivum 
ex  vivo),  it  is  only  because  the  Apriori  of  Thought  is  itself 
absolutely  determined  by  the  Apriori  of  Being ;  the  neces- 
sities of  logic  are  conditions  of  existence,  and  the  only 
scientific  classification  is  that  which  results  from  real  gen- 
esis.    The  principle  of  the  regress  to  conditions  is  that  the 
specimen   is  conditioned  by  its  species,  the  thing  by  its 


4  THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 

kind,  the  individual  by  its  universal,  as  its  eondicto  sine 
qua  non.  That  is,  the  species  evolves  the  specimen  and 
the  specimen  involves  the  species;  the  genus  evolves  the 
species  and  the  species  involves  the  genus ;  the  progress  to 
consequences  in  Being  is  the  course  of  evolution  through 
involution,  and  the  regress  to  conditions  in  Thought,  fol- 
lowing this  same  course  in  the  reverse  order,  is  the  course 
of  involution  through  evolution.  The  regress  itself  is  dis- 
covery, in  that  which  has  been  evolved,  of  what  was  in- 
volved in  that  very  evolution.  For  involution  and  evolution 
are  in  themselves  only  two  coefficients  or  co-factors  in  one 
and  the  same  life-process,  complementary  and  essential  to 
each  other,  neither  possible  without  the  other ;  but,  while 
evolution  gives  the  actual  fact  presented  to-  observation, 
involution  gives  the  neoessary  reason  presented  to  reflec- 
tion. Hence  the  evolutionary  progress  to  consequences  is 
learned  empirically  in  history,  while  the  involutionary  re- 
gress to  conditions  must  be  learned  rationally  in  philosophy. 
The  sole  known  method  of  Being  is  this  one  double-method 
of  involution  in  evolution  and  evolution  in  involution ;  the 
sole  scientific  method  of  Thought  as  Philosophy,  that  is,  as 
rational  regress  to  necessary  conditions  or  principles,  is  the 
double-method  of  explaining  evolution  by  involution  and 
involution  by  evolution.  In  other  words,  because  the 
Apriori  of  Thought  is  determined  by  the  Apriori  of  Being, 
and  because  the  method  of  Thought  and  the  method  of 
Being  are  thus  essentially  one.  Thought  (1)  as  History, 
and  (2)  as  Philosophy,  is  the  Knowledge  of  Being,  to 
ovTa>9  6v ;  and  the  unit  of  knowledge,  the  particular  cogni- 
tion as  such,  is  the  percept-concept,  the  syllogism. 

§  152.  Every  valid  syllogism,  which  is  the  characteris- 
tic act  of  all  reason  in  experience,  expresses  at  once  the 
progress  to  consequences  in  the  fact  and  the  regress  to 
conditions  in  the  reason  :  it  is  the  identity  in  difference  of 
the  reason  and  the  fact.  The  major  premise  posits  the 
condition  or  reason  as  a  universal  rule ;  and  this  is  an  act 
of  rational  conception.    The  minor  premise  posits  the  con- 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  MUST  6 

ditioned  as  a  particular  case  of  that  rule ;  and  this  is  an 
act  of  empirical  perception.     The  conclusion  posits  the 
unconditioned  dependence  of  the  conditioned  on  the  condi- 
tion, the  necessary  inherence  of  the  unit  of  the  minor  in 
the  universal  of  the  major,  as  an  absolute  necessity  in- 
volved in  their  coexistence ;  the  major  -h  the  minor  =  the 
conclusion,  as  inevitably  as  3  -{-  5  =  8,  which  means  is  and 
mmt  be  equal.    The  whole  syllogism,  isolating  it  from  all 
others  as  prosyllogisms  and  assuming  the  truth  of  the 
premises,  is  this  one  act  of  equation,  this  one  judgment 
combining  within  itself  the  three  elements  of  the  condi- 
tioned (minor  term),  the  mediating  or  conditioned  condition 
(middle  term),   and  the  unconditioned  condition    (major 
term) ;  it  is  this  one  act  of  equating  the  reciprocal  relation- 
ship of  the  three  terms,  as  implicit  in  the  premises,  with 
itself,  as  explicit  in  the  conclusion;  it  is  the  absolutely 
necessary  equation  of  essential  self-identity  of  the  two 
members  ;  and  it  is  an  act  of  cognition  as  such  —  the  mole- 
cule of  cognition,  as  it  were,  in  which  the  necessary  rela- 
tions of  the  atoms  as  parts  are  the  molecular  constitution 
of  the  whole.     Every  judgment  is  an  implicit  syllogism, 
and  every  syllogism  is  (as  above)  an  equation  or  explicit 
judgment ;  both  depend  on  the  actual  or  assumed  existence 
of  the  three  terms,  major,  minor,  and  middle,  whose  inter- 
relation under  that  assumption,  however,  is  unconditionally 
determined  by  the  Apriori  of  Being,  the  unconditioned  con- 
ditions of  existence,  the  law  of  unit-universals. 

In  this  mu^t  of  the  conclusion,  in  this  unconditioned 
necessity  that,  if  both  the  premises  are  valid,  the  conclu- 
sion must  be  valid  (and  this  mv^t  is  always  there,  expressed 
and  felt  in  the  therefore)  lies  the  essence  of  reason  as  dis- 
tinguished from  experience,  and  therefore  the  essence  of 
the  syllogism  as  its  constitutive  act.  Experience,  or  the 
perception  of  units  (things  of  some  kind),  is  the  learning 
of  what  is  :  reason,  or  the  conception  of  universals  (kinds 
of  things),  is  the  learning  of  what  must  be  ;  knowledge,  or 
the  identity  in  difference  of  experience  and  reason,  unites 


6 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


the  two  elements  under  the  relation  of  conditioned  and 
condition  ;  and  their  union  in  the  percept-concept  of  the 
unit-universal  is  the  only  actual  or  possible  cognition  of  an 
actual  or  possible  object  (something,  as  thing  in  its  kind, 
or  kind  in  its  things,  or  kind  as  thing  in  a  higher  kind).  It 
follows,  therefore,  that  every  actual  or  possible  cognition 
has  of  necessity  the  latent  or  patent  form  of  the  syllogism  . 
as  a  unit-universal,  which  is  determined  to  be  the  necessary 
form  of  knowledge  because  it  is  the  necessary  form  of  ex- 
istence ;  the  necessity  is  epistemological  simply  and  solely 
because  it  is  ontological.  Consequently,  the  absolute  must 
which  conjoins  the  two  premises,  as  "  antecedent,"  to  the 
conclusion,  as  "consequent,"  is  not  at  bottom  a  necessity 
of  Thought,  but  a  necessity  of  Being,  conditioning  both 
Thought  and  Being  alike  as  the  absolute  prius  of  their 
only  actual  or  possible  form  :  namely,  the  form  of  the  unit- 
universal.  In  other  words,  the  syllogistic  must  is  the  com- 
plex of  those  necessary  organic  relations,  or  "  bonds,"  so  to 
speak,  by  which  the  premises  and  conclusion,  as  atoms,  are  . 
united  and  relationally  constituted  as  a  molecule,  the  three 
judgments  as  one  syllogism  or  unit  of  cognition.  As  Sir 
William  Hamilton  has  well  expressed  it :  — 

"  In  regard  to  the  act  of  Reasoning,  nothing  can  be  more 
erroneous  than  the  ordinary  distinction  of  this  process,  as  the 
operation  of  a  faculty  different  in  kind  from  those  of  Judgment 
and  Conception.  Conception,  Judgment,  and  Reasoning  are  in 
reality  only  various  applications  of  the  same  simple  faculty,  that 
of  Comparison  or  Judgment.  I  have  endeavored  to  show  that 
concepts  are  merely  the  results,  rendered  permanent  by  language, 
of  a  previous  process  of  comparison  ;  that  judgment  is  nothing 
but  comparison,  or  the  results  of  comparison,  in  its  immediate  or 
simpler  form  ;  and,  finally,  that  reasoning  is  nothing  but  compari- 
son in  its  mediate  or  more  complex  application.  It  is,  therefore, 
altogether  erroneous  to  maintain,  as  is  commonly  done,  that  a 
reasoning  or  syllogism  is  a  mere  decompound  whole,  made  up 
of  judgments,  as  a  judgment  is  a  compound  whole,  made  up  of 
concepts.  This  is  a  mere  mechanical  mode  of  cleaving  the  mental 
phaenomena  into  parts,  and  holds  the  same  relation  to  a  genuine 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  MUST  7 

analysis  of  mind  which  the  act  of  the  butcher  does  to  that  of  the 
anatomist.  It  is  true,  indeed,  that  a  syllogism  can  be  separated 
into  three  parts  or  propositions,  and  that  these  propositions  have 
a  certain  meaning,  when  considered  apart  and  out  of  relation  to 
each  other.  But,  when  thus  considered,  they  lose  the  whole 
significance  which  they  had  when  united  in  a  reasoning ;  for  their 
whole  significance  consisted  in  their  reciprocal  relation,  —  in  the 
light  which  they  mutually  reflected  on  each  other.  We  can  cer- 
tainly hew  down  an  animal  body  into  parts,  and  consider  its 
members  apart  ;  but  these,  though  not  absolutely  void  of  all 
meaning,  when  viewed  singly  and  out  of  relation  to  their  whole, 
have  lost  the  principal  and  peculiar  significance  which  they  pos- 
sessed as  the  coefficients  of  a  one  organic  and  indivisible  whole. 
It  is  the  same  with  a  syllogism.  The  parts  which  in  their  organic 
union  possessed  life  and  importance,  when  separated  from  each 
other  remain  only  enunciations  of  vague  generalities  or  of  futile 
identities.  Though,  when  expressed  in  language,  it  be  necessary 
to  analyze  a  reasoning  into  parts  and  to  state  these  parts  one  after 
another,  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  in  thought  one  notion,  one 
proposition,  is  known  before  or  after  another  ;  for  in  consciousness 
the  three  notions  and  their  reciprocal  relations  constitute  only  one 
identical  and  simultaneous  cognition."  ^ 


§  153.  Now  the  peculiar  problem  of  the  syllogism  is  the 
problem  of  the  mmt  which  is  its  essence  or  soul.  What  is 
this  necessity  in  thought  ?  Is  it  ultimate,  or  is  it  grounded 
in  a  deeper  necessity  of  being?  In  other  words,  is  the 
Apriori  of  Thought  derived  from  the  Apriori  of  Being? 

Pure  Empiricism  denies  any  knowable  necessity  what- 
ever, and  resolves  its  appearance  in  thought  into  mere 
custom,  mere  association  of  ideas,  as  a/ac^  tvithout  a  reason. 
Pure  Rationalism  denies  any  knowable  necessity  beyond 
thought  as  such,  and  resolves  its  appearance  in  thought  into 
the  result  of  a  certain  actual  constitution  of  the  reasoning 
faculty,  as  an  ultimate  fact;  that  is,  this  merely  actual  con- 
stitution of  pure  reason,  by  which  the  necessity  or  apodeic- 
ticity  of  a  given  judgment  or  a  "pure  a prioH  concept"  is 


*  Lectures  on  Logic,  1860,  p.  194. 


8 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


supposed  to  be  explained,  offers  us,  again,  a  fact  mthout  a 
reason. 

But  scientific  philosophy  finds  knowable  necessity  in  the 
syllogism  per  se,  and  traces  it  back  through  a  series  of 
necessary  prosyllogisms  as  the  regress  to  conditions  or 
grounds,  until  it  arrives  at  the  unconditioned,  immanent 
alike  in  every  single  syllogism  and  in  the  nexus  of  prosyl- 
logisms, as  already  involved  and  given  in  each  link  and  in 
the  chain  of  links.  This  immanent  and  unconditioned 
necessity  is  the  Apriori  of  Being,  the  law  of  unit-univer- 
sals,  and  constitutes  the  immanent  reason  of  reason  itself 
the  absolute  ground  of  the  possibility  of  intelligence  as 
such  in  the  reasoning  process ;  for  the  ontological  relation 
of  condition  and  conditioned,  as  itself  the  absolutely  uncon- 
ditioned, is  a  fact  of  being  on  which  the  very  existence  of 
reason  as  a  process  of  thinking  unconditionally  depends. 
Keason  does  not  make  this  relation,  and  cannot  unmake  it ; 
on  the  contrary,  reason  presupposes  and  depends  on  it.  The 
Knowing  I  does  not  and  cannot  establish  this  relation,  for 
it  is  only  in  accordance  with  this  very  relation  that  the 
Knowing  I  can  be  itself  established  as  that  which  perceives, 
thinks,  reasons,  knows  —  it  is  only  in  accordance  with  the 
Apriori  of  Being  that  reason  itself  can  be. 

Thus  scientific  philosophy,  as  epistemology  grounded  in 
ontology,  arrives,  not  at  a  fact  without  a  reason,  but  at  a 
fact  which  is  itself  a  reason :  namely,  at  the  Being  of  Reason 
itself  —  at  the  Absolute  Unit-Universal  as  the  Absolute  I 
—  at  the  identity  in  difference  of  reason  and  experience  in 
every  actual  or  possible  cognition  as  essentially  a  syllogism. 
For  reason  gives  the  condition  in  the  major  premise,  expe- 
rience gives  the  conditioned  in  the  minor  premise,  and, 
these  once  given,  knowledge  gives  the  necessary  or  absolutely 
unconditioned  conclusion :  that  is,  every  valid  syllogism  is 
an  existent  cognition  as  a  given  fact  in  consciousness,  and 
its  own  content  as  unconditioned  dependeiice  of  the  condi- 
tioned on  its  condition  is  at  once  a.  fact  of  existence  and  the 
ultimate,  absolute,  unconditioned  reason  of  that  fact.     This 


'I 


t 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  MUST 


9 


constitution  of  the  syllogism,  as  a  knowledge  of  being 
which  is  itself  being,  is  what  it  is  simply  because  it  cannot 
be  otherwise;  and  its  existence  as  the  absolutely  uncon- 
ditioned form  of  every  actual  cognition  is  itself  the 
existence  of  human  knowledge. 

§  154.  Empiricism,  as  we  have  said,  denies  any  know- 
able  necessity  whatever  in  human  knowledge.  Hume  has 
been  already  quoted  above  (§  54)  as  holding  that  "the 
understanding  never  observes  any  real  connection  among 
objects,"  and  that  "even  the  union  of  cause  and  effect, 
when  closely  examined,  resolves  itself  into  a  customary 
association  of  ideas."  It  is  strangely  obtuse  in  so  acute  a 
thinker  not  to  perceive  that  the  "  customary  association  of 
ideas  "  itself  presupposes  unity,  universality,  and  persistent 
identity  in  that  which  associates  the  ideas  and  acquires  a 
permanent  custom  of  associating  them.  This  is  a  necessary 
condition  immanent  in  the  very  act  of  "association"  as 
such,  beyond  which  mere  act,  however,  Hume  does  not 
look  at  all,  and  into  which  he  does  not  look  deeply  enough 
to  see  what  it  does  and  must  contain.  "  Association  "  can 
unite  separate  states  solely  through  unity  in  that  which 
associates ;  "  custom,"  as  a  habit  of  associating,  is  a  repeti- 
tion of  acts  which  must  be  referred  to  one  and  the  same 
agent ;  and  the  "  understanding,"  if  it  is  to  be  more  than  an 
intuitive  but  unretentive  and  non-associative  mirror,  does 
and  must  "  observe  "  this  unconditioned  dependence  of  the 
conditioned  on  the  condition  as  a  "  real  connection  among 
objects,"  in  order  to  render  comprehensible  even  the 
"association  of  ideas." 

In  the  final  edition  of  his  "First  Principles,"  in  the 
"  Postscript  to  Part  I "  (dated  March,  1899),  Mr.  Herbert 
Spencer  holds  that  "  knowledge  involves  the  three  elements. 
Relation,  Difference,  Likeness,^^  and  that  <^  unconditioned 
existence,  of  which  no  one  of  these  can  be  affirmed  without 
contradiction,  consequently  does  not  present  a  subject- 
matter  for  knowledge."  That  is,  we  cannot  know  the 
existence  of  anything  unconditioned.     Yet,   in  this   very 


10 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


postscript,  Spencer  himself  refers  to  a  previous  section 
which  says :  "  Before  it  can  constitute  a  piece  of  knowledge 
or  even  become  an  idea,  a  mental  state  must  be  known  not 
only  as  separate  in  kind  or  quality  from  certain  foregoing 
states  to  which  it  is  known  as  related  by  succession,  but  it 
must  also  be  known  as  of  the  same  kind  or  quality  with 
certain  other  foregoing  states."  That  is,  we  cannot  know 
even  the  existence  of  a  "piece  of  knowledge,"  an  "idea," 
or  a  "  mental  state,"  unless  we  know  the  existence  of  its 
unconditioned  similarity  to  foregoing  states.  In  short, 
combining  these  positions,  we  cannoty  and  yet  we  do  and 
musty  know  the  existence  of  this  similarity  as  uncon- 
ditioned. 

Similar  contradictions  lie  in  every  other  denial  of  the 
possibility  of  knowing  the  existence  of  the  unconditioned 
or  absolute  element  in  human  knowledge.  For  this  very 
denial  of  possibility  is  in  itself  an  affirmation  of  uncondi- 
tioned necessity.  That  is,  if  S  cannot  be  R,  it  mu^t  be 
Not-R.  Impossibility  and  necessity  are  the  only  two  forms 
of  the  unconditioned  as  such;  if  we  know  either  in  any 
case  whatever,  we  "know  the  existence  of  the  uncondi- 
tioned." In  these  self-contradictions  of  Hume  and  Spen- 
cer, which  can  be  matched  in  every  empiricist  writer, 
empiricism  refutes  and  annihilates  itself  as  rational 
thinking. 

§  155.  Rationalism,  in  its  turn,  denies  any  knowable 
necessity  beyond  the  actual  constitution  of  the  reasoning 
faculty,  as  in  itself  the  ultimate  and  absolute  ground  of  all 
necessity  we  can  know.  According  to  its  way  of  thinking, 
the  relation  of  condition  and  conditioned  is  itself  merely  a 
thought-relation,  determined  solely  by  the  nature  of  the 
human  intelligence  as  such ;  it  is  a  purely  subjective  form, 
imposed  on  the  otherwise  formless  but  equally  subjective 
matter  of  experience  by  a  cognitive  faculty  whose  exist- 
ence is  an  absolutely  inexplicable  fact ;  it  is  the  essential 
relation  which  determines  the  reasoning  process,  but  has 
no  origin  extraneous  to  the  spontaneity  of  the  reasoning 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  MUST 


11 


faculty  itself.     In  other  words,  there   is  an  Apriori  of 
Thought,  which  consists  in  forms  that  are  the  necessary 
conditions  of  experience^  but  there  is  no  Apriori  of  Being  as 
necessary  conditions  of  reason :  things  in  themselves  are  un- 
knowable, and  can  have  therefore,  no  knowable  conditions. 
In  other  words  still,  the  only  necessity  which  is  knowable 
by  man  is  always  subjective  and  never  objective,  — always 
grounded  in  the  merely  actual  constitution  of  the  subject 
as  its  ultimate  origin,  never  grounded  in  a  necessary  consti- 
tution of  the  object  per  se  as  co-determinant  factor  in  all 
cognition  of  the  object  by  the  subject.     Consequently, 
while  rationalism  posits  in  reason  alone  all  the  necessary 
conditions  of  thought  as  cognition  or  experience  (Apriori 
of  Thought),  it  posits  in  reason  itself  merely  an  actual  con- 
stitution, and  denies  that  any  explanation  of  this  actual 
constitution  can  be  discovered  in  any  necessary  conditions 
of  its  existence  (Apriori  of  Being).     It  thus  conceives  hu- 
man reason  as  a  complete  organism  in  itself,  absolutely  cut 
off  from  all  being  but  its  own,  touching  nowhere  an  exist- 
ence which  does  not  depend  upon  itself,  and  finding  know- 
able  independent  existence  beyond  itself  neither  as  units 
(things  in  themselves)  nor  as  universals  (conditions  of  ex- 
istence in  general) ;  it  absorbs  into  this  exclusive  subjec- 
tivity all  things  as  mere  phaenomena,  and  all  conditions 
of  things,  even  Space  and  Time  themselves,  as  mere  forms 
of  these  phaenomena.     It  follows,  of  course,  that  consist- 
ent rationalism  is  absolute  subjectivism,  and  that  consistent 
subjectivism  is  absolute  solipsism;   but  this  consequence 
must  not  delay  us  here. 

With  great  clearness  and  precision,  Kant  has  expressed 
this  principle  of  the  exclusive  subjectivity  of  all  knowable 
necessity  as  follows  :  — 

**  In  our  reason,  considered  subjectively  as  a  human  faculty  of 
knowledge,  there  lie  ground-rules  and  maxims  of  its  employment 
which  have  altogether  the  aspect  of  objective  principles.  Hence 
it  happens  that  the  subjective  necessity  of  a  certain  combination 
of  our  concepts  in  the  service  of  the  understanding  is  taken  for  an 


12 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


objective  necessity  of  the  determination  of  things  in  themselves. 
This  is  an  illusion^  but  it  cannot  be  avoided."  ^ 

**  Pure  reason  is  a  spliere  so  isolated,  so  thoroughly  interrelated 
in  itself,  that  we  cannot  touch  one  part  without  involving  all  the 
rest,  and  cannot  effect  anything  without  having  determined  before- 
hand for  each  part  its  position  and  its  influence  on  the  others. 
For,  since  there  is  nothing  outside  of  this  sphere  which  can  correct 
our  judgment  within  it,  the  validity  and  use  of  every  part  depends 
on  the  relation  in  which  it  stands  to  the  others  in  reason  itself; 
and,  as  in  the  structure  of  an  organized  body,  the  function  of  each 
organ  can  be  deduced  only  from  the  complete  concept  of  the  whole. 
It  may  be  said  of  a  universal  critique  of  reason,  therefore,  that  it 
is  never  trustworthy  unless  it  is  wholly  completed,  even  to  the 
least  elements  of  pure  reason;  and  that  we  must  determine  and 
make  out  either  everything  or  nothing  in  the  sphere  of  this  faculty. 
.  .  .  [Synthesis  was  the  original  method  of  exposition]  in  order 
that  the  science  might  exhibit  all  its  articulations  in  their  natural 

1  Kritik  der  reinen  Vemunft,  Werke,  III.  246.  This  passage  seems, 
but  only  seems,  to  be  contradicted  in  the  Kritik  der  pniktischen  Vemunft, 
Werke,  V.  12,  where  Kant  says :  **  Subjective  Nothwendigkeit,  d.  i. 
Gewohnheit,  statt  der  objectiven,  die  nur  in  Urtheilen  a  jrriori  stattfindet, 
unterschieben,  heisst  der  Vemunft  das  Vermtigen  absprechen,  iiber  den 
Gegeustand  zu  urtheilen,  d.  i.  ihn  and  wa*  hm  zukomme,  zu  erkennen," 
u.  s.  w.  For  by  "objective  necessity,"  in  the  passage  translated  in  the 
text,  Kant  means  a  necessity  inherent  in  **  things  in  themselves,"  of 
which  he  denies  all  knowledge  ;  whereas,  in  this  passage,  he  means  by 
the  same  phrase  a  necessity  inherent  in  **  judgments  a  priori"  respecting 
the  "object  of  experience  "  (Oegenstand  =  Erscheinu7ig\  not  the  *'  thing 
in  itself."  Of  course,  all  "judgments"  must  inhere  in  the  subject^  not  in 
the  ohjed  as  thing-iu-itself ;  hence  their  necessity  must  be  subjective^  and 
not  objective^  and  both  passages  referred  to  perfectly  agree  in  doctrine. 
This  confusion  in  terms  is  inimical  to  the  interests  of  clear  thinking,  how- 
ever, and  is  greatly  to  be  regretted.  In  my  own  usage,  "object"  always 
means  the  "thing  in  itself,"  determined  by  the  Apriori  of  Being  to  be  in 
itself  a  unit-universal,  and  deteraiinant  of  the  percept-concept  as  the 
necessary  identity  in  difference  of  Jnschaiiung  and  Begtnff,  and  therefore 
as  an  implicit  syllogism  (§  157).  Hence,  as  will  appear  below,  I  regard 
the  syllogism,  even  when  it  exists  only  in  an  individual  consciousness  as 
an  "object"  of  that  consciousness,  as  none  the  less  a  "thing  in  itself," 
because  the  necessity  of  its  conclusion  results  from  its  own  constitution  as 
determined  by  the  Apriori  of  Being  behind  the  Apriori  of  Thought. 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  MUST 


13 


I 


I 


connection,  as  the  organization  of  an  entire  special  faculty  of 
knowledge."  ^ 

§  156.  It  thus  appears  that  empiricism  is  the  philosophy 
of  simple  actuality,  the  quality  of  that  which  is,  yet  may  be 
otherwise ;  that  rationalism  is  the  philosophy  of  subjective 
necessity,  the  quality  of  that  which  is  and  cannot  be  thought 
otherwise ;  and  that  critical  realism  is  the  philosophy  of 
objective  necessity,  the  quality  of  that  which  is  and  cannot 
be  otherwise.  It  is  evident,  however,  that  objective  neces- 
sity includes  subjective  necessity,  since  "  to  be  "  conditions 
and  includes  "  to  be  thought,"  which  is  only  a  particular 
mode  of  being,  not  exclusive  of  other  possible  modes ;  that 
is,  the  Apriori  of  Being  includes  the  Apriori  of  Thought 
as  the  greater  includes  the  less.  For  instance.  Space  must 
be,  whether  it  can  or  can  not  be  thought ;  its  being  thought 
is  the  condition  of  its  being  asserted,  but  neither  its  being 
thought  nor  its  being  asserted  is  the  condition  of  its  being, 
which  has  no  condition  at  all ;  on  the  contrary,  its  being  is 
the  absolute  condition  of  its  being  thought  or  being  asserted. 
Hence  Space  is  the  unconditioned  condition  of  extended- 
ness  or  extension,  since  whatever  is  extended  must  have 
room  (Space)  to  be  extended  in.^  Conditions  of  being, 
therefore,  cannot  be  resolved  into  nor  explained  by  con- 
ditions of  thought :  these  must  be  explained  by  those.  The 
relations  of  condition,  conditioned,  and  unconditioned  are 
involved  of  necessity  in  all  thought,  because  they  are  in- 
volved of  necessity  in  whatever  can  be  thought  about;  and 
this  objective  necessity,  now  everywhere  recognized  by 
modern  science  as  the  "  conditions  of  existence,"  is  in  itself 
identical  with  the  simple  Possibility  of  Being,  without  which 
there  could  be  no  possibility  of  thinking  as  a  mode  of  be- 
ing, and  behind  which  no  thought  can  go  without  a  self- 
contradiction. 

*  Prolegomena,  u.  s.  w.,  Vorrede,  Werke,  IV.  11. 
a  North  American  Review,  July,  1864,  article  on  *'Tlie  Philosophy  of 
Space  and  Time." 


I  \ 


14 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOrHY 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  MUST 


15 


i 


§  157.  Now  these  primordial  and  constitutive  relations 
of  Being  —  condition,  conditioned,  and  unconditioned,  which 
cannot  be  conceptually  united  except  as  unconditioned  con- 
dition of  the  conditioned^  and  which  in  this  union,  therefore, 
must  constitute  the  goal  of  all  philosophic  inquiry  into 
Being  —  are  the  essential  relations  or  ground-form  of 
Thought  as  a  mode  of  Being,  that  is,  as  an  act  of  the  I. 
The  rationalists  are  not  wrong  in  seizing  self-activity  or 
self-determination  as  the  essence  of  the  Thinking  I,  nor 
are  they  wrong  in  seizing  the  syllogism  as  its  essential  act ; 
their  cardinal  error  lies  in  not  seizing  the  Apriori  of  Being, 
the  law  of  unit-universals  or  principle  of  individuation 
(every  "  thing "  is  an  existent  unit-universal  of  generic, 
specific,  and  reific  essence,  and  cannot  be  otherwise),  as  the 
unconditioned  condition  of  the  syllogism  itself,  because 
it  is  the  unconditioned  condition  of  the  particular  unit- 
universal  of  which  any  given  syllogism  is  the  percept- 
concept.  In  all  its  self-activity,  the  Thinking  I  must  be, 
in  order  to  think,  and  must,  therefore,  be  substance;  it 
must  act  or  think,  in  order  to  be,  and  must,  therefore,  be 
energy  ;  its  substance  is  its  energy,  and  its  form  is  thinking 
energy  or  the  syllogism  itself,  which,  if  valid,  is  Knowledge 
of  Being,  but  which,  if  invalid,  is  Error  or  Ignorance  of 
Being.  That  is,  the  Thinking  I  is  the  Knowing  I,  when  it 
thinks  in  accordance  with  the  Apriori  of  Being;  for  the 
syllogism  (expressed  or  implied)  is  the  only  possible  form 
of  real  cognitions  in  concreto. 

If,  for  instance,  I  say,  "  That  tree  is  an  oak,"  my  judg- 
ment, which  seems  to  be  grounded  on  nothing  but  appercej)- 
tion,  is  in  truth  a  condensed  syllogism,  "  All  trees  with 
certain  marks  are  oaks ;  that  tree  has  those  marks ;  there- 
fore, it  is  an  oak," — a  syllogism  in  which  perception  as 
experience  gives  a  unit  in  the  minor,  conception  as  reason 
gives  its  universal  in  the  major,  and  knowledge  of  the 
object,  as  a  unit-universal,  follows  in  the  conclusion,  as  a 
percept-concept  of  that  unit-universal.  Every  answer  to 
the   questions,   "  What   is   that  ?     And   why  ? "  similarly 


throws  itself,  when  analyzed,  into  the  syllogistic  form.  In 
other  words,  to  think  is  to  syllogize,  and  to  know  is  to  syllo- 
gize in  accordance  with  the  Apriori  of  Being.  It  follows 
that,  inasmuch  as  Kant's  "pure  knowledge  a  priori"  is 
knowledge  which  is  pure  from  all  experience,  and  inasmuch 
as  experience  has  been  shown  to  be  a  necessary  factor  of 
the  syllogism  as  the  necessary  form  of  all  knowledge,  there 
is  and  can  be  no  such  thing  as  "  pure  knowledge  a  priori,'^  ^ 
For  it  would  be  total  suppression  of  the  minor  premise  in 
every  syllogism. 

§  158.  It  was  said  in  §  153  that  the  problem  of  the  syl- 
logism is  the  problem  of  the  7nust ;  and  it  now  is  evident 
that  the  tnust  is  at  bottom  ontological  —  epistemological 
only  because  it  is  ontological.  Given  a  conditioning  uni- 
versal as  a  kind,  and  given,  also,  a  conditioned  unit  as  a 
thing  of  that  kind,  that  unit  jnust  inhere  in  that  universal ; 
it  cannot  he  otherwise,  and  for  that  reason  alone  cannot  with- 
out error  he  thought  otherwise.  This  unconditional  objective 
necessity  in  rerum  natura  that  whatever  exists  must  exist 
in  and  of  the  kind  it  belongs  to,  and  cannot  exist  in  and  of 
a  kind  it  does  not  belong  to,  is  the  ontological  ground  of 
the  law  of  contradiction  as  a  law  of  logic.  Self-contradiction 
in  Being  is  impossible,  and  for  that  reason  is  impossible  in 
Thought,  except  as  Error.     Whatever  is,  is  as  it  is,  and 

*  '*  Wiis  Schlimmeres  konnte  aber  diesen  Beiniihiiugen  wohl  iiicht 
begegiien,  als  wcnn  Jemand  die  unerwartete  Entdeckung  machte,  dass  es 
iibemll  gar  kein  Erkenntniss  a  priori  gebe,  noch  geben  konne.  AUein  es 
Lat  hiemit  keine  Noth.  Es  ware  ebeii  so  viel,  als  ob  Jemand  durch  Ver- 
imnft  beweisen  woUte,  dass  es  keine  Vernunft  gebe.  Denn  wir  sagen  nur, 
dass  wir  etwas  durch  Vernunft  erkennen,  wenn  wir  uns  bewusst  sind,  dass 
wir  es  auch  batten  wissen  konnen,  wenn  es  uns  auch  nicht  so  in  der 
Erfahrung  vorgekommen  ware  ;  mithin  ist  Vernunfterkenntniss  und  Er- 
kenntniss a  priori  einerlei."  (Kritik  der  praktischen  Vernunft,  Werke,  V. 
12.)  To  affirm  that  there  is  jw  reason  separated  from  experience  is  not 
to  affirm  that  there  is  no  reason.  That  separation  is  the  fatal  mistake, 
not  of  Kant  alone,  but  of  the  whole  school  of  the  Beg  riff sphilosophie.  To 
suppress  experience  in  the  syllogism  is  to  suppress  the  minor  altogether, 
and  that  is  to  suppress  the  syllogism  as  such.  To  separate  reason  and 
experience  is  to  deny  both. 


. 


1 
7l 


16 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


h 


cannot  he  as  it  is  not ;  that  is  the  bottom  reason  why  it  can- 
not he  known  as  it  is  not  —  that  is,  cannot  be  without  error 
referred  to  any  kind  it  does  not  belong  to.  If  S  is  R,  it 
cannot  be  Not-R,  too;  it  may  cease  to  be  R  and  become 
Not-R,  but  it  cannot  be  and  not-be  R  at  once.  Thus  the 
law  of  contradiction  in  logic  is  conditioned  by  the  law  of 
unit-universals  as  unconditioned  ohjective  necessity  —  a  ne- 
cessity of  Being  in  the  existence  of  the  unit-universal  as  the 
necessary  form  of  any  possible  object  of  knowledge,  and  a 
necessity  both  of  Being  and  of  Thought  in  the  existence  of 
the  percept-concept,  the  syllogism  itself,  as  a  unit-universal 
which  is  the  ultimate  molecule  of  knowledge  as  such.  In 
this  correspondence  or  agreement  of  the  forms  (immanent 
relational  constitutions)  of  the  object  of  knowledge  and 
the  syllogism,  the  thing  in  itself  and  the  thought  of  it,  as 
both  unit-universals  (cv  tovtois  17  to-on;?  kvonj^),  lies  the 
reality  of  the  cognition,  that  is,  its  truth.  And  thus  the 
Apriori  of  Being,  the  Apriori  of  Thought,  and  the  Apriori 
of  Knowledge,  as  shown  in  Chapter  VIII,  are  all  three 
united  in  the  Law  of  Unit-Universals :  which,  it  may  now 
be  added,  having  the  Apriori  of  Being  for  its  major  pre- 
mise, the  Apriori  of  Thought  for  its  minor  premise,  and 
the  Apriori  of  Knowledge  for  its  conclusion,  now  appears 
as  the  aboriginal  and  eternal  Syllogism  of  Being,  the  iden- 
tity in  difference  of  Being  and  Thought  as  Subject-Object, 
the  Self-Knowledge  of  the  Absolute  I. 

§  159.  In  this  must,  then,  contained  in  the  "  therefore  " 
which  declares  the  unconditionally  necessary  equation  of 
the  two  premises  as  the  twofold  '^antecedent"  with  the 
conclusion  as  the  single  "  consequent,"  lies  the  soul  of  the 
syllogism,  its  energy  as  affirmation  or  judgment,  its  essence 
as  the  characteristic  act  of  reason.  With  the  penetration 
of  a  genius  never  surpassed,  Kant  identified  this  "act  of 
synthesis  "  with  "  the  understanding  "  itself ;  although  he 
considered  it  as  only  an  "act  of  spontaneity,"  traced  it 
back  no  farther  than  to  the  actual  constitution  of  the  under- 
standing itself,  and  failed  to  see  that  the  "  synthetical  unity 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  MUST 


17 


of  the  manifold  in  intuition  "  cannot  be  thought  except  in 
the  form  of  the  syllogism,  more  or  less  disguised  in  count- 
less ways  outwardly,  but  always  essentially  the  same.  The 
synthetic  act  of  reason  in  the  syllogism  is  certainly  spon- 
taneous, as  every  act  must  be,  in  the  sense  that  the  act  may 
or  may  not  be  performed;  but,  if  performed,  its  form  is 
determined  by  the  nature  of  that  with  which  it  deals,  as  the 
course  of  a  river  is  determined  by  the  nature  of  the  country 
through  which  it  flows,  and  the  spontaneity  of  reason  or 
the  synthetic  understanding  in  no  way  creates  the  absolute 
must  of  the  syllogism,  the  unchangeable  form  and  intrinsic 
self-relatedness  of  the  understood.  In  other  words,  neces- 
sary relations,  which  are  what  they  are  simply  because 
they  cannot  be  otherwise,  and  which,  therefore,  constitute 
an  absolutely  unconditioned  element  in  all  intellection, 
enter  into  every  syllogism,  not  ultimately  because  the  sub- 
ject cannot  think  otherwise,  but  ultimately  because  the 
object  cannot  be  otherwise,  and  because  the  subject  cannot 
think  the  object  as  it  is,  or  know  it,  without  thinking 
its  own  subjective  necessities  as  at  bottom  objective 
necessities,  too. 

The  entire  aim  of  Kant^s  famous  deduction  of  the  cate- 
gories, however,  is  to  explain  away  all  objective  necessities 
in  the  thing-in-itself  as  merely  subjective  necessities  in  the 
thinking  subject  —  to  disprove  the  objectivity  of  relations 
in  Being  by  proving  the  exclusive  subjectivity  of  relations 
in  Thought.     The  method  of  procedure,  in  a  nutshell,  is 

(1)  to  conceive  the  object  in  general,  not  as  the  objectively 
determined  Di^ig  an  sich,  but  as  the  merely  subjectively 
determined  Erscheinung  or  Gegenstand  der  Erfahrung  ;  and 

(2)  to  conceive  all  relation  as  such,  not  as  the  immanent  re- 
lational constitution  of  the  object  in  itself,  but  merely  as 
the   relating  activity  of  the  subject  —  that  and  nothing 

more. 

This  is  in  truth  the  complete  disappearance  of  the  object 
of  cognition,  as  distinct  or  distinguishable  in  the  last  analy- 
sis from  the  individual  subject ;  but  the  two  misconceptions 

VOL.  u. — 2 


4 


iiii 


18 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


l| 


just  stated  are  the  sum  and  substance  of  Kant's  so-called 
"theory  of  knowledge"  — which  would  be  better  described 
as  his  theory  of  our  necessary  ignorance  of  things  as  they 
are  in  themselves.  But,  waiving  this  consequence,  the 
ground  of  Kant's  position  is  the  assumption  that  relation  as 
such  is  nothing  whatever  but  the  subject's  act  of  combination. 
Sensuous  intuition,  mere  sensitiveness  to  impressions  which 
in  some  inexplicable  way  come  from  without  the  subject, 
gives  the  Many,  the  manifold  content  of  our  representa- 
tions ;  and  the  form  of  sensuous  intuition  (Space  and  Time), 
which  exists  a  priori  in  our  representative  faculty  as  the 
condition  of  our  sensibility  itself,  is  nothing  but  the  mode 
in  which  the  subject  is  affected.  But  it  is  the  spontaneous 
act  of  combination  which  alone  gives  the  One  in  this  Many, 
the  unity  in  this  manifold  content  of  intuition;  and  this  act 
of  combination,  which  cannot  be  given  by  sensuous  intu- 
ition as  such,  and  cannot  even  be  contained  in  the  a  priori 
form  of  it,  can  proceed  only  from  a  faculty  which  is  itself 
active,  not  passive  or  receptive  like  the  representative 
faculty.  As  distinguished,  then,  from  the  merely  passive 
sensibility  and  its  a  priori  forms  of  Space  and  Time,  the 
actively  combining  faculty  must  be  the  understanding. 
Consequently,  all  combination  (  Verbindung,  conjunction  si/tv- 
thesis),  that  is,  all  relating  or  relationing,  must  be  in  all 
cases  a  mere  act  of  the  understanding,  determined  by 
nothing  beyond  itself,  and  therefore  purely  spontaneous. 
"  We  cannot  represent  anything  to  ourselves  as  combined 
in  the  object  [that  is,  as  related  or  interrelated  within  it] 
without  having  ourselves  combined  it  previously.  Of  all 
representations,  combination  is  the  only  one  which  cannot 
be  given  through  objects,  but  must  be  performed  by  the 
subject  itself,  because  it  is  an  act  of  its  self-activity."  Com- 
bination, then,  is  the  spontaneous  act  by  which  the  under- 
standing relates,  and  thereby  unifies,  the  manifold  content 
of  a  phaenomenal  object.  It  originates,  in  so  doing,  the 
category  of  unity  of  a  pure  concept  a  priori;  but  this 
unifying  act  of  combination  presupposes  a  higher  unity 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  MUST 


19 


I 

I 
III 

I*; 


still,  not  the  unity  of  the  manifold  in  the  phaenomenon,  but 
the  unity  of  the  combining  faculty  of  that  which  unifies. 
This  higher  unity  is  that  of  the  subject  itself,  the  originally 
synthetical  unity  of  apperception,  without  which  there  could 
be  no  combination  as  a  spontaneous  act  of  the  understand- 
ing, and  no  combination  of  its  combinations  in  a  single 
consciousness.*  This  is  tlie  entire  content  of  the  famous 
chapter  on  the  "  deduction  of  the  categories,"  put  into  a 
nutshell  as  the  principle  of  the  exclusive  subjectivity  of  re- 
lations —  that  is,  the  principle  of  the  Apriori  of  Thought  as 
the  ultimate  and  exclusive  source  of  all  knowable  necessity 
or  universality  in  whatever  is  known.     (See  §  172.) 

§  160.  Here,  in  the  most  unequivocal  manner,  is  taught 
the  principle  of  the  exclusively  subjective  origin  of  all 
relations  as  such;  for  positive  and  negative  combination 
includes  both  conjunction  and  disjunction,  both  synthesis 
and  analysis,  with  all  that  these  imply.  All  cor>biuation, 
then,  all  relating  or  relationing,  is  reduced  to  the  mere 
energizing  of  the  understanding,  as  the  active  faculty  in  all 
cognition ;  and  the  form  of  its  activity,  the  combining  judg- 
ment, is  a  fact  without  assignable  reason.  All  known  things 
are  the  product  of  "sensibility,"  and  all  known  combina- 
tions or  relations  of  things  are  the  product  of  "  understand- 
ing," as  the  receptive  and  active  faculties  of  the  subject : 
in  Kant's  own  words,  "  the  understanding  does  not  derive 
its  apriori  laws  from  Nature,  but  prescribes  them  to  it."  ^ 
In  other  words.  Nature  as  we  know  it  is  nothing  whatever 
but  the  work  of  the  human  mind.  This  is  the  necessary 
and  logical  outcome  of  the  principle  of  the  exclusive  sub- 
jectivity of  relations,  the  denial  of  their  independent  objec- 
tivity, the  reduction  of  all  relation  in  the  object  to  the  mere 
combining  or  relating  activity  of  the  subject.  It  is  the 
simple,  merely  actual  nature  of  the  understanding  to  com- 
bine, to  predicate,  to  judge ;  but  why  it  combines  or  predi- 
cates or  judges  as  it  does,  and  not  otherwise,  why  it  runs 

1  Kritik  der  reinen  Vernunft,  Werke,  IIL  114. 
«  Prolegomena,  u.  s.  w.,  Werke,  IV.  68. 


m 


f* 


I V 


H 


20 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


all  the  fluid  matter  of  experience  in  the  form-giving  mould 
of  its  own  a  priori  categories,  why  these  categories  are  at 
all  necessary  in  themselves,  —  these  are  questions  unan- 
swered and  unanswerable  by  the  Kantian  theory  of  knowl- 
edge. For,  as  we  have  seen  in  §  155,  Kant  denies  explicitly 
that  subjective  necessities  in  knowing  are  determined  ulti- 
mately by  objective  necessities  in  being ;  he  fails  to  see 
that  what  is  necessarily  combined  or  related  in  the  object 
must  be  so,  and  not  otherwise,  combined  or  related  by  the 
subject  in  its  thought  of  the  object,  or  else  its  thought  of 
the  object  will  be,  not  knowledge,  but  ignorance.  For  ob- 
jective relations  are  the  absolute  condition  of  the  possibility 
of  knowledge ;  all  combinations  by  the  understanding  must 
be  governed  by  prior  combinations  in  the  object,  or  else 
the  understanding  forfeits  its  own  being  and  vanishes  in 
misunderstanding. 

§  161.  The  bearing  of  these  considerations  on  our  pres- 
ent subject,  the  syllogistic  must,  lies  in  the  fact  that  Kant^s 
theory  of  the  exclusive  subjectivity  of  relations,  as  acts  of 
combination  by  the  understanding  which  are  purely  spon- 
taneous, that  is,  wholly  independent  of  and  uninfluenced 
by  any  possible  but  unknown  combinations  in  the  object 
per  se,  converts  that  must  into  a  "  spontaneous  act "  of  un- 
explained assertion,  and  evacuates  the  syllogism  itself  of 
all  logical  necessity.    Let  us  examine  an  instance:  — 

(1)  All  stars  shine  by  their  own  light 
Procyon  is  a  star. 

Therefore,  Procyon  shines  by  its  own  light. 

(2)  All  stars  shine  by  their  own  light. 
Procyon  is  a  star. 

Therefore,  Procyon  does  not  shine  by  its  own  light. 

Here  we  have  two  final  judgments,  "Procyon  shines  by 
its  own  light"  and  "Procyon  does  not  shine  by  its  own 
light,"  which,  considered  merely  as  isolated  judgments  un- 
combined  with  other  judgments,  are  equally  possible  in 
themselves.     Why  is  not  one  as  valid  as  the  other  ?    Why 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  MUST 


21 


may  I  not  make  the  affirmation  or  the  negation  with  equal 
ease?  There  is  nothing  in  either  judgment,  as  a  mere 
single  judgment,  to  prevent  the  understanding  from  com- 
bining its  subject  and  its  predicate  just  as  the  understanding 
itself  arbitrarily  elects;  irrespective  of  other  judgments, 
there  is  manifestly  no  necessity  which  requires  the  under- 
standing to  combine  that  subject  and  that  predicate  either 
with  or  without  the  "not,"  and  its  act  of  combination, 
therefore,  is  indeed  so  far  "  spontaneous,"  or  undetermined 
by  anything  beyond  itself. 

But  the  case  is  totally  changed  as  soon  as  we  consider 
the  two  judgments  not  as  isolated,  but  as  conclusions 
from  premises  in  a  syllogism.  The  first  immediately 
becomes  a  necessary  inference,  the  second  an  impossible 
inference.  The  understanding's  act  of  combination  is 
no  longer  "spontaneous,"  in  the  sense  of  being  undeter- 
mined by  anything  beyond  itself;  on  the  contrary,  it  is 
now  determined  by  the  premises,  that  is,  by  the  inherent 
necessity  of  other  judgments  per  se,  which  necessitates  the 
understanding  in  this  case  to  combine  the  subject  and 
predicate  of  the  conclusion  affirmatively,  not  negatively. 
The  nature  of  the  syllogism  per  se  is  as  absolute  as  that  of 
the  triangle,  and  depends  no  more  than  the  latter  on  any 
imagined  spontaneity  of  the  understanding.  It  is  impos- 
sible for  the  understanding  to  think  the  triangle  at  all 
except  in  accordance  with  the  immanent  laws  of  the  tri- 
angle, or  to  infer  at  all  except  in  accordance  with  the 
equally  immanent  laws  of  the  syllogism.  We  may  or  may 
not  conceive  or  construct  a  plane  triangle;  but  we  can 
neither  construct  it  nor  conceive  it  except  under  the  condi- 
tions that,  if  constructed  or  conceived  at  all,  the  greatest 
side  shall  stand  opposite  to  the  greatest  angle,  and  the  sum 
of  the  three  angles  shall  equal  two  right  angles,  and  not 
more  than  one  of  the  three  shall  be  as  large  as  ninety  de- 
grees. Omnipotence  itself  could  not  construct,  omniscience 
itself  could  not  conceive,  a  plane  triangle,  except  under 
these  conditions,  the  unconditioned  necessity  of  which  is  a 


I 


n 


22 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


part  of  the  Apriori  of  Being ;  no  power,  no  will,  no  sponta- 
neity of  the  understanding,  nothing  whatever  could  in  the 
least  degree  modify  the  conditions  named,  which  simply 
cannot  be  otherwise.  The  same  is  true  of  the  syllogism. 
I  may  not  infer  at  all,  or  I  may  draw  false  inferences, 
which  are  no  inferences ;  I  cannot  infer  except  in  accord- 
ance with  the  nature  of  the  syllogism,  which  is  determined 
by  the  Apriori  of  Thought,  which  is  itself  determined  by 
the  Apriori  of  Being.  Because  the  law  of  unit-universals 
is  the  condition  of  whatever  exists,  it  is  the  condition  of  all 
knowledge  of  whatever  exists ;  and  for  this  reason  the  form 
of  all  knowledge  is  the  syllogism,  the  enthymeme,  or  the 
percept-concept  in  general. 

§  162.  Now  these  forms  of  the  triangle  and  the  syllo- 
gism, once  put  forth  by  one  understanding  and  brought 
within  the  scope  of  another  understanding  as  actual  prod- 
ucts, cease  to  be  purely  subjective,  and  become  as  un- 
deniably objective  per  se  as  a  house  or  a  mountain.  A 
communicated  syllogism  is  a  known  Dirig  an  sich.  The 
two  syllogisms  presented  above,  which,  while  I  am  writing, 
stand  as  my  own  individual  thinking  only,  cease  to  be  my 
thinking  altogether  when  thought  by  the  reader.  To  me, 
the  conclusion  of  the  first  syllogism  is  a  necessary  infer- 
ence, and  that  of  the  second  an  impossible  inference  ;  what- 
ever spontaneity  I  may  attribute  to  my  own  understanding, 
I  rmist  combine  that  subject  and  that  predicate  in  the  first 
way,  and  I  cannot  combine  them  in  the  second  way.  More- 
over, I  believe  that  you,  the  reader,  are  equally  necessitated 
to  draw  the  same  inference.  If  so,  what  is  the  ground  of 
this  identical  necessity  in  two  independent  minds  ?  If  two, 
twenty,  a  million  minds  cannot  but  infer  as  I  do  from  those 
particular  premises,  is  it  not  evident  that  they  are  all  con- 
strained so  to  think  by  the  determinative  nature  of  this 
syllogism  in  itself,  as  an  object  per  se  of  independent  intel- 
ligences, an  object  which  determines  the  combining  facul- 
ties of  various  cognizing  minds  to  combine  that  subject  and 
that  predicate,  not  according  to  any  supposed  spontaneity 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  MUST 


23 


in  themselves,  but  according  to  immanent  and  absolutely 
fixed  relations  in  the  object  itself? 

Even  Kant  could  not  otherwise  account  for  the  necessary 
agreements  of  independent  minds.  In  a  remarkable  pas- 
sage which  unconsciously  surrenders  his  own  dogma  of  the 
unknowableness  of  the  Ding  an  slchj  he  says :  — 

♦*  When  we  find  reason  to  hold  a  judgment  as  necessarily  and 
universally  valid  (in  which  case  it  never  rests  on  perception,  but  on 
the  pure  concept  of  the  understanding  under  which  the  perception 
is  subsumed),  we  must  hold  it  as  also  objective.  That  is,  we  must 
hold  that  it  expresses,  not  merely  a  reference  of  perception  to 
a  subject,  but  a  constitution  of  the  object  [Gegenstand  —  which  is 
here  treated  as  a  Ding  an  sich].  For  there  would  be  no  reason 
why  other  people's  judgments  must  of  necessity  agree  with  mine, 
if  there  were  no  unity  of  the  object  to  which  they  all  refer,  with 
which  they  must  all  agree  and  therefore  must  all  coincide  one  with 
another.**  1 

Yet,  after  thus  attributing  to  the  object  ^er  se  a  determi- 
native influence  on  the  judgments  of  different  individual 
subjects,  so  irresistible  as  to  explain  by  the  immanent  re- 
lations of  that  object  per  se  the  necessary  coincidence  of  all 
those  judgments  respecting  it,  and  after  thus  claiming  a 
knowledge  of  its  inner  ''constitution''  (  Beschaffenheit), 
Kant  goes  on  in  the  very  next  sentence  to  repeat  the 
dogma  he  has  just  unwittingly  discredited :  namely,  that 
"we  do  not  know  the  object  in  itself  {das  Object  an  sich).'' 
This  is  trying  to  have  one's  cake  and  eat  it,  too.  If  I  re- 
tain those  two  syllogisms,  one  with  a  necessary  and  the 
other  with  an  impossible  inference,  strictly  within  the 
sphere  of  my  own  consciousness,  I  may  perhaps  succeed  in 
convincing  myself  that  the  necessity  of  my  combining 
judgment  lies  solely  in  the  subjective   "act  of  sponta- 

1  Prolegomena,  u.  s.  w.,  Werke,  IV.  47.  The  same  idea  is  expressed 
in  the  Kritik  der  praktischen  Vemunft,  Werke.  V.  12,  13  :  ''  Ich  erwahne 
hier  nicht  einmal,"  u.  s.  w.  But  it  is  distinctly  denied  in  the  Kritik  der 
reinen  Vemunft,  Werke,  IIL  117:  "  Verbindung  aber  liegt  nicht  in  den 
Gegenstanden,"  u.  s.  w. 


24 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


neity  "  of  my  own  understanding.  But,  if  I  communicate 
them  to  others,  that  explanation  breaks  down.  For  I  find 
that  all  other  minds  judge  precisely  as  I  do ;  that,  if  all  the 
necessity  in  the  syllogism  communicated  is  derived  from 
my  particular  understanding  a  priori^  nothing  but  this 
necessity  of  my  particular  understanding  can  possibly  be 
found  there  by  others ;  that  any  necessary  agreement  of  all 
other  minds  with  mine  must  be  explained  either  (1)  as  the 
effect  of  my  mind  necessitating  all  other  minds  to  agree 
with  me,  or  (2)  as  the  effect  of  an  absolute  relation  in  the 
syllogism  itself,  independent  of  me  and  necessitating  all 
minds  to  agree  with  it.  For  I  cannot  arrive  at  any  neces- 
sity immanent  in  all  mind  as  mind,  that  is,  at  any  Bo" 
wusstsein  iiberhaupt  or  "  universal  consciousness,"  until  I 
arrive  there  by  the  path  of  the  /  in  the  We  in  the  Absolute  I 
—  until  I  find  the  unit-mind  explained  by  the  universal 
mind,  and  this  I  cannot  do  until  I  effect  a  rational  transi- 
tion from  the  I  to  the  We,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  is  not 
to  be  found  in  Kant,  in  Fichte,  in  Hegel. 

Kant,  therefore,  explains  his  "  subjective  necessity  "  in 
the  syllogism,  not  as  a  necessity  in  it,  as  a  part  of  the  con- 
ditions of  existence  or  the  Apriori  of  Being,  but  only  as  a 
necessity  in  him,  resting  at  last  on  an  "act  of  sponta- 
neity "  of  an  individual  subject.  So,  at  least,  he  leaves  the 
case  logically.  His  Bewusstsein  iiberhaupt  is  only  his  own 
individual  consciousness  writ  large,  and  he  deceives  him- 
self in  imagining  that  any  "  pure  concepts  a  priori  "  of  his 
particular  understanding  must  needs  be  absolute  categories 
for  any  other  understanding,  unless  he  can  prove  that  ab- 
solute categories  for  all  understandings  are  determined  to 
be  such  by  a  known  immanent  constitution  in  the  object  joer 
se,  the  IHnff  an  sich.  But  this  is  precisely  what  he  most 
persistently  denies.  He  unconsciously  evacuates  the  syl- 
logism of  its  intrinsic  must,  therefore,  just  because  he 
cannot  see  that  this  must  is  at  bottom  an  "objective 
necessity,"  a  condition  of  existence :  namely,  necessary  total 
inherence  of  the  unit  in  the  universal,  and  necessary  partial 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  MUST 


25 


inherence  of  the  universal  in  the  unit.  In  other  words,  he 
leaves  the  syllogism  itself  a  mere  arbitrary  assertion,  a 
mere  "  act  of  spontaneity  "  without  a  reason  —  an  act  un- 
grounded in  the  necessary  nature  of  Thought,  because  he 
fails  to  ground  the  necessary  nature  of  Thought  in  the 
necessary  nature  of  Being. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  SYLLOGISM  IN  GENERAL:  NINE  CANONS  OF 

SYLLOGISTIC 

§  1G3.   It  is  now  time  to  enter  into  a  more  searching 
examination  of  the  nature  of  the  syllogism  itself,  and  to 
inquire  how  any  judgment  whatever  can  be  at  once  st/n- 
thetic  and  necessary.     This  latter  question  was  the  original 
problem  which  confronted  Kant,  and  he  thought  he  had 
solved  it  by  explaining  all  synthetic  judgments  as  merely 
of  a  priori  origin  — that  is,  as  due  merely  to  an  a  priori 
constitution  of  reason,  antecedent  to  all  experience,  and  to 
the  a  priori  combinations  of  this  pure  reason  as  "  acts  of 
spontaneity."     But  this  notion  of  "spontaneity"  is  fatal 
to  his  explanation.     As  the  conclusion  of  our  given  syllo- 
gism, the  synthetic  judgment  that  "Procyon  shines  by  its 
own  light"  is  necessary;  but  mere  "spontaneity,"  whether 
in  the  sensibility  a  posteriori  or  in  the  understanding  a 
priori,  can  never  explain  necessity  —  not  even  the  "sub- 
jective necessity  "  which  Kant  intends.     The  real  question 
is  :  why  rmist  the  understanding  combine  that  subject  and 
that  predicate  affirmatively,   and  why  cannot  it  combine 
them  negatively?     To  say  that  it  does  combine  them  so 
"  a  prioriy"  or  independently  of  all  experience,  would  not 
say  in  the  least  that  it  must  combine  them  so;  while  to 
say  that  it  combines  them  so  "  spontaneously  "  would  say 
that  it  combines  them  so  without  any  assignable  necessity 
anywhere.    In  either  case,  the  synthetic  judgment  is  not 
shown  to  be  necessary  at  all,  much  less  explained  as  such, 
and  the  original  problem  is  evaded.     To  ground  "  subjec- 
tive necessity  "  on  mere  "  acts  of  spontaneity,"  even  if  not 
an  absolute  contradiction  (for  spontaneity,    it  might  be 


f 


THE  SYLLOGISM  IN  GENERAL 


27 


claimed,  is  itself  disguised  and  unexplained  necessity), 
is  at  least  a  curious  instance  of  stopping  short  of  an 
explanation. 

But  the  problem  itself  cannot  thus  be  abandoned.  Any 
particular  syllogism  may  be  properly  enough  referred  to  an 
"act  of  spontaneity,"  so  far  as  the  understanding  either 
may  or  may  not  frame  it.  But,  if  the  understanding  does 
frame  it,  it  must  be  framed  in  accordance  with  the  imma- 
nent and  necessary  laws  of  the  syllogism  per  se,  over  and 
above  any  possible  freedom  of  "  spontaneity  "  in  the  under- 
standing itself ;  otherwise,  it  is  not  a  hit,  but  a  miss,  —  not 
a  syllogism  at  all,  but  a  fallacy.  In  other  words,  the  syl- 
logism, like  the  triangle,  has  an  absolutely  limited  relational 
constitution  as  a  Ding  an  sich,  an  unconditionally  necessary 
frame  of  its  own,  which  determines  every  combining  act  of 
the  understanding,  however  spontaneous  it  may  appear  or 
pretend  to  be ;  and  this  "  subjective  necessity  "  of  the  syl- 
logism, as  a  mode  of  thinking,  must  rest,  Kant  to  the  con- 
trary notwithstanding,  on  an  "  objective  necessity  "  in  the 
syllogism  itself,  as  an  object  of  thought,  that  is,  on  the  con- 
ditions of  its  existence  as  a  syllogism  and  not  a  fallacy,  on 
the  Apriori  of  Being  as  the  law  of  unit-universals. 

§  164.  These  ontologically  apriori  conditions  of  existence 
determine  the  truth  of  the  syllogism  as  a  piece  of  knowl- 
edge, and  the  untruth  of  the  fallacy  as  a  piece  of  igno- 
rance ;  and  exact  compliance  with  them  in  all  its  operations 
or  thought-combinations  is  the  condition  of  the  understand- 
ing itself  as  the  knowledge-faculty,  Kant's  "  faculty  of 
cognitions."  They  in  no  degree  limit  or  interfere  with 
the  understanding's  legitimate  freedom  or  spontaneity ;  on 
the  contrary,  they  are  the  very  ground  of  possibility  of  the 
understanding  itself,  which,  if  the  immanent  laws  or  rela- 
tions of  the  syllogism  were  not  unconditionally  fixed,  would 
have  no  fixed  form  of  activity,  instrument  of  action,  or  field 
of  exercise.  Relations  in  the  object  which  were  deter- 
mined solely  by  the  understanding's  "  acts  of  spontaneity," 
as  Kant  holds  they  all  are,  would  give  nothing  to  know 


H 


28 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  SYLLOGISM  IN  GENERAL 


29 


\ 


except  these  acts  themselves ;  which  acts  of  "  combination," 
moreover,  being  "  spontaneous  "  or  destitute  of  assignable 
grounds  of  reasons,  would  be  non-rational  or  purely  empiri- 
cal,—  destitute,  that  is,  even  of  '* subjective  necessity"  in 
"pure  reason"  itself.  In  this  manner,  by  this  principle 
of  the  exclusive  subjectivity  of  relations,  Kant  annihilates 
all  principles  of  rational  necessity,  all  possibility  of  reason 
itself  as  the  source  of  synthetic  judgments  which  are  really 
necessary  and  universal,  and  gives  a  firm  foothold  in  his 
system  to  the  alogism  of  Schopenhauer  and  Von  Hartmann 
—  none  to  the  panlogism  of  Hegel.  It  is  the  objectivity  of 
relations,  as  this  is  grounded  in  the  law  of  unit-universals, 
and  both  illustrated  and  demonstrated  by  the  absolutely 
necessary  nature  of  the  syllogism  per  se,  which  alone  throws 
light  on  the  nature  of  Being  as  itself  essential  Reason  — 
as  in  itself,  not  alogistic,  nor  purely  panlogistic,  but  neces- 
sarily, universally,  and  eternally  syllogistic.  For  the 
objective  ground  of  subjective  necessity  in  the  syllogism, 
as  the  norm  of  all  human  knowing,  is  the  objective  neces- 
sity of  the  unit-universal  itself,  as  the  norm  of  all  possible 
being.  That  is,  the  eternal  self-ordering  of  Energy  in  Space 
and  Time  according  to  absolute  objective  relations  of  genus, 
species,  and  specimen,  which  are  what  they  are  because 
they  cannot  be  otherwise,  and  because  no  possible  universe 
could  be  other  than  the  One  in  the  Many  and  the  Many  in 
the  One,  is  itself  the  Syllogism  of  Being.     (§  158.) 

Absolute  objective  relations  of  genus,  species,  and  speci- 
men, then,  determine  the  constitution  of  every  subjective 
syllogism,  thought  or  communicated,  as  a  known  thing  in 
itself  ;  not  at  all  because  the  understanding  has  so  related 
or  "  combined  "  it  a  priori  by  "  acts  of  spontaneity,"  but 
because  the  conditions  of  its  possibility  are  fixed  immutably 
by  the  law  of  unit-universals  or  Apriori  of  Being,  — that 
is,  because  the  conditions  of  human  knowledge  are  identical 
with  the  conditions  of  existence  itself.  "Subjective  ne- 
cessity "  must  be  itself  explained ;  but  it  cannot  be  explained 
by  Kant's   "  spontaneity "  —  it  can  be  explained   only  by 


J. 


"  objective  necessity,"  which  is  as  far  as  explanation  can  go. 
Let  us,  then,  study  the  syllogism  further. 

§  165.  Every  valid  syllogism  may  be  considered  in  the 
quantity  of  intension  or  in  the  quantity  of  extension. 
Viewed  in  the  quantity  of  intension  or  comprehension,  our 
given  syllogism  — 

All  stars  shine  by  their  own  light ; 

Procyon  is  a  star ; 

Therefore,  Procyon  shines  by  its  own  light  — 

means  that  Procyon  contains  all  the  common  specific  attri- 
butes of  stars,  that  all  stars  contain  th©  common  generic 
attribute  of  self-luminosity,  and  that  Procyon,  therefore, 
must  contain  this  generic  and  specific  attribute.  Viewed 
in  the  quantity  of  extension,  the  syllogism  means  that 
Procyon  is  contained  as  a  specimen  in  all  stars  as  a 
species,  that  all  stars  as  a  species  are  contained  in  self- 
luminous  bodies  as  a  genus,  and  that  Procyon,  therefore, 
must  be  contained  in  the  genus  of  self-luminous  bodies. 
In  either  case,  we  have  the  same  three  elements,  genus, 
species,  specimen ;  and  the  whole  rational,  logical,  or  sub- 
jective necessity  of  the  inference,  the  must  of  the  syllog- 
ism as  a  whole,  depends  on  the  ontological  or  objective 
necessity  of  those  relations  among  genus,  species,  and 
specimen  which  cannot  but  be  what  they  are,  and  which, 
therefore,  necessitate  the  inference  itself,  irrespective  of 
any  supposed  "spontaneity"  in  the  understanding  or  its 
"  combinations."  That  is,  if  the  understanding  should 
combine  the  major,  middle,  and  minor  terms  in  a  syllogism 
contrary  to  the  objective  relations  of  whole  and  part  which 
exist  among  genus,  species,  and  specimen  in  nature,  the 
syllogism  would  be  distorted  into  a  fallacy,  and  the  under- 
standing would  extinguish  itself  as  sheer  misunderstanding. 
For  those  objective  relations  of  genus,  species,  and  speci- 
men which  constitute  the  law  of  unit-universals  are  con- 
ditions of  existence  of  the  syllogism  itself,  and  knowledge 


ft  ■ 


30 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


i  > 


k>  i 


Hi  1 


consists  in  conforming  the  subjective  relations  of  thought 
to  those  objective  and  immutable  relations  of  being. 

In  the  quantity  of  extension,  the  major  term  of  the  syllo- 
gism is  the  genus,  as  containing  most  units,  and  the  minor 
term  is  the  specimen  or  a  class  of  specimens,  as  containing 
fewest  units.  In  the  quantity  of  intension,  the  major  term 
is  the  specimen,  as  containing  most  attributes,  and  the  minor 
term  is  the  genus,  as  containing  fewest  attributes.  But  the 
middle  term  in  both  quantities  is  the  species,  mediating 
between  the  genus  and  the  specimen  or  specimens,  and  link- 
ing the  three  elements  in  thought  as  they  are  necessarily 
linked  in  existence.  The  intensive  syllogism  is  founded 
upon  the  necessary  constitution  of  the  speeirnen,  as  compris- 
ing generic  essence,  specific  essence,  and  reific  essence  in 
indissoluble  unity  —  the  immanent  relational  constitution 
of  the  "  something,"  the  "  object  in  general,"  the  "  thing  in 
itself,"  the  unit-universal.  (§  98.)  The  extensive  syllogism 
is  founded  upon  the  necessary  constitution  of  the  genusy  as 
comprising  all  its  whole  species,  and  that  of  the  species^  as 
comprising  all  its  whole  specimens.  In  other  words,  the 
validity  of  the  syllogism  as  a  cognition,  whether  considered 
intensively  or  extensively,  depends  unconditionally  upon  the 
law  of  unit-universals  as  the  Apriori  of  Being.     (§  99.) 

§  166.  The  three  terms  of  the  syllogism  can  be  com- 
bined in  three,  and  only  three,  pairs.  Inclusion  of  the 
species  in  the  genus  gives  the  major  premise,  which  is  the 
assumption  of  one  rational  concept  under  another ;  inclusion 
of  the  specimen  or  class  of  specimens  in  the  species  gives 
the  minor  premise,  which  is  the  subsumption  of  an  experi- 
ential percept  under  the  smaller  rational  concept;  and 
inclusion  of  the  specimen  or  class  of  specimens  in  the 
genus  gives  the  conclusion,  which  is  the  subsumption  of 
the  experiential  percept  under  the  larger  rational  concept. 
Here  we  have,  apparently,  merely  three  acts  of  inclusion, 
three  "  acts  of  spontaneity  "  by  the  understanding,  three 
judgments  of  precisely  similar  nature ;  yet  there  is  a  pro- 
found difference  between  the  last  and  the  first  two. 


THE  SYLLOGISM  IN  GENERAL 


31 


In  any  isolated  syllogism,  the  premises  are  non-necessary 
judgments,  mere  judgments  of  actuality  which  may  even 
be  mistakes,  and  which,  considered  logically,  stand  only  as 
assumption  and  subsumption  in  an  argument;  yet,  if  the 
subjective  relations  of  genus,  species,  and  specimen,  as 
determined  in  the  two  premises  taken  together,  accord  with 
the  objective  relations  of  genus,  species,  and  specimen,  as 
determined  by  the  Apriori  of  Being,  the  conclusion  drawn 
from  those  premises  is  an  absolutely  necessary  judgment. 
The  necessity  of  the  inference,  as  inference  merely, 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  truth  of  the  premises  as  state- 
ments of  fact,  and  nothing  to  do  with  the  "  spontaneity " 
of  the  understanding  in  "combining"  them;  the  under- 
standing may  or  may  not  "combine"  them,  but  it  cannot 
combine  them  as  the  conclusion  of  a  syllogism  except  in 
accordance  with  the  objective  laws  of  the  syllogism  per  se, 
as  determined  by  the  conditions  of  its  existence  in  the  law 
of  unit-universals.     For  instance :  — 

All  books  are  birds ; 
The  Parthenon  is  a  book ; 
Therefore,  the  Parthenon  is  a  bird. 

These  absurd  premises  are  simple  assertory  judgments ; 
yet  the  conclusion,  being  the  only  possible  inference  from 
those  premises  as  assumed,  is  an  apodeictic  or  necessary 
conclusion.  That  is,  if  all  books  are  birds,  and  if  the 
Parthenon  is  a  book, —  if  books  are  a  species  of  the  genus 
bird,  and  if  the  Parthenon  is  a  specimen  of  that  species, — 
it  follows  of  necessity  that  the  Parthenon  cannot  but  be  a 
bird.  How  happens  it  that  the  combination  of  two  merely 
assertory  judgments,  when  related  as  sumption  and  sub- 
sumption, can  yield  an  apodeictic  judgment?  Major -f 
minor  =  conclusion :  how  can  the  second  member  of  an 
equation  contain  more  than  the  first  member?  Neither 
premise  contains  necessity,  yet  the  conclusion  contains  it. 
Manifestly,  the  necessity  of  the  conclusion  is  derived,  not 
from  either  premise  alone,  nor  even  from  the  mere  sum  of 


32 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  SYLLOGISM  IN  GENERAL 


33 


the  two  premises  uncombined,  but  solely  from  their 
objective  interrelation  or  natural  "  combination  "  —  that  is, 
not  from  any  "  spontaneity ''  in  the  subject,  but  from  the 
intrinsic  character  of  their  objective  relations  as  "  objective 
necessiti/,^^  The  above  syllogism  is  merely  one  case,  all  the 
more  easily  perceptible  and  intelligible  because  destitute  of 
material  truth,  of  the  law  which  determines  a  priori  the 
universal  and  necessary  reciprocal  relations  of  genus, 
species,  and  specimen,  that  is,  the  conditions  of  their  co- 
existence as  wholes  and  parts ;  and  this  a  priori  necessity 
of  their  objective  interrelation  as  the  ground  of  their 
possibility  is  itself  the  Apriori  of  Being.  Genus,  species, 
and  specimen  cannot  exist  at  all  as  logical  wholes  and 
parts,  unless  they  are  as  absolutely  interrelated  as  the  angles 
and  sides  of  a  triangle ;  and  all  syllogisms  whatever  are 
merely  cases  of  this  unconditional  interrelation  of  genus, 
species,  and  specimen  as  logical  wholes  and  parts.  The 
apodeicticity  of  the  syllogism,  its  absolute  vnisty  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  *'  spontaneity  "  of  the  understand- 
ing; for  the  constitution  of  the  syllogism  per  se  is  a 
necessary  cosmic  law  as  the  form  of  all  actual  or  possible 
reasoning.  If  the  understanding  fails  to  conform  its 
operations  to  that  cosmic  must^  it  becomes  mere  misunder- 
standing, mere  mindlessness,  and  swamps  the  syllogism  in 
the  fallacy.  The  Apriori  of  Thought  can  never  explain 
this  syllogistic  must,  this  derivation  of  an  apodeictic  con- 
clusion from  merely  assertory  premises,  except  as  the 
Apriori  of  Thought  is  itself  explained  by  the  Apriori  of 
Being,  the  laws  of  which  are  the  deep  and  ill-discerned, 
yet  none  the  less  absolute,  determinant  condition  of  all 
reasoning  whatever. 

§  167.  The  "  objective  necessity "  which  Kant  pro- 
nounced an  "illusion  which  cannot  be  avoided"  (§  155) 
proves,  therefore,  to  be  no  illusion  at  all.  So  far  from 
this,  it  is  the  only  possible  explanation  of  an  indubitable 
logical  fact :  namely,  that  the  premises  of  an  isolated  syllo- 
gism are  never  anything  in  themselves  but  merely  assertory 


judgments,  while  yet  their  combination  in  the  conclusion 
is   an   apodeictic  or  unconditionally  necessary  judgment 
This  supreme  characteristic   of  the  syllogism,  of  which 
Kant  takes  no  notice,  and  of  which  his  "  spontaneity  "  of 
the  understanding  is  certainly  no  explanation  (necessity 
out  of  spontaneity  is  ex  pumice  aqua),  can  be  explained 
solely  by  the  fact  that,  while  the  premises  singly  are  mere 
assertions,  they  already  contain  the  whole  rational  neces- 
sity of  the  conclusion  in  their  own  organic  combination, 
connection,  or  interrelation  in  the  syllogism  per  se.     That 
is,  the  "  objective  necessity  "  of  the  correlational  nexus  of 
the  two  assertory  judgments  as  premises  =  the  "  subjective 
necessity"    of    the    apodeictic    judgment    as    conclusion. 
Nothing  but  this  equation  of  involved  objective  necessity 
in  the  premises  and  evolved   subjective  necessity  in  the 
conclusion  constitutes  the  necessary  truth  that  sumption  -f 
subsumption  =  conclusion  —  that  is,  the  truth  and  apodeic- 
ticity of  the  syllogism  itself. 

§  168.  The  peculiar  nature  of  the  syllogism  as  itself  an 
absolutely  fixed  form  and  "object  of  knowledge,"  with 
a  necessary  constitution  of  its  own  which  is  dependent 
on  nothing  but  the  Apriori  of  Being,  will  be  made  clearer 
by  a  conspectus  of  its  most  important  characteristics,  which 
may  be  called  the  Nine  Canons  of  Syllogistic. 

Canon  1.  In  the  syllogism  as  a  constitutive  act  of  the 
logical  understanding,  the  major  and  middle  terms  are  con- 
cepts, the  work  of  reason ;  the  minor  term  is  a  percept,  the 
work  of  experience;  and  the  conclusion,  subsuming  the 
percept  under  the  major  concept  in  a  single  indivisible 
judgment,  is  a  percept-concept  —  a  particular  cognition 
grounded  on  identity  in  difference  of  experience  and  reason 
as  the  essential  elements  of  all  human  knowledge. 

Canon  2.  The  major  term  denotes  the  concept  of  a 
genus;  the  middle  term  denotes  the  concept  of  a  species  of 
that  genus;  and  the  minor  term  denotes  the  percept  of 
a  specimen  or  specimens  of  that  species.  The  copula  must 
be  "is''  or  "  is  not,"  and  always  denotes  inherence,  signify- 

VOL.    II. —  3 


34 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  SYLLOGISM  IN  GENERAL 


85 


ing  "  contains  "  or  "  is  contained  in.''  Every  syllogism  may 
be  read  both  ways,  as  intensive  or  extensive;  but,  if  read 
intensively,  the  major  term  becomes  the  percept,  as  con- 
taining the  most  attributes,  and  the  minor  term  the  genus, 
as  containing  the  fewest. 

Canon  3.  The  major  premise  subsumes  the  species  under 
the  genus;  the  minor  premise  subsumes  the  specimen  or 
specimens  under  the  species ;  and  the  conclusion  subsumes 
the  minor  premise  under  the  major  premise  in  a  single 
judgment,  that  is,  subsumes  the  specimen  or  specimens 
through  the  species  under  the  genus. 

Canon  4.  The  logical  "  antecedent"  consists  of  the  two 
premises  taken  together  — two  merely  assertory  judgments 
which  are  linked,  welded,  or  mediated  by  the  identity  or 
self-equality  of  their  common  middle  term.  The  logical 
"  consequent ''  is  the  conclusion  alone  —  a  single  apodeictic 
judgment  whose  apodeicticity  or  "  subjective  necessity  "  is 
derived  from  the  intrinsic  inevitableness  or  "objective 
necessity"  of  that  mediation  through  self-equality  of  the 
middle  term,  as  unconditioned  condition  of  the  possibility  of 
a  syllogism.  That  is,  there  can  be  no  syllogism  without 
self-mediation  —  no  logical  "consequent"  without  self- 
mediation  in  the  logical  "  antecedent."  The  self-mediation 
itself  consists  in  an  objective  subordination  of  tlie  specimen 
or  specimens  under  the  species,  and  of  the  species  under  the 
genus;  and  the  necessity  of  it  in  the  syllogism  is  the 
necessity  of  that  subordination  in  Being,  if  there  is  to  be  a 
syllogism  in  Thought  at  all.  Failure  of  that  objectively 
necessary  self-mediation,  as  in  case  of  "undistributed 
middle,"  is  failure  of  the  sequence,  and  destruction  of  the 
syllogism's  "subjective  necessity"  as  apodeicticity  or 
demonstrative  force. 

Canon  5.  The  logical  necessity  of  self-mediation  as  the 
principle  of  demonstration  in  Thought,  that  is,  the  logical 
necessity  of  the  syllogism  as  the  mode  and  form  of  all 
proof,  is  conditioned  by  and  depends  upon  the  ontological 
necessity  of  universal  self-mediation  in  Being:  that  is, 


i: 


\ 


objective  self-mediation  hy  the  species  between  the  genus  and 
specimen^  through  necessary  inherence  of  every  specimeii  in 
its  species  and  of  every  species  in  its  genus  (§  127).     This 
necessary  inherence  is  necessary  origination  of  every  unit 
in  its  own  universal.     If  such  inherence  is  not  universally 
and  unconditionally  necessary,  the  syllogism,  which  pre- 
supposes it,  ceases  altogether  to  be  a  proof  ;  but,  if  it  is, 
the  syllogism  as  a  proof  is  ultimately  grounded  in  the  law 
of  unit-universals  as  the  Apriori  of  Being.     The  necessity 
of  inherence  cannot  be  derived  from  *Hhe  understanding 
as  a  faculty  of  spontaneity,"  ^  because  real  spontaneity  con- 
tradicts all  necessity,  whether  objective  or  subjective,  and 
because  no  "faculty  of  spontaneity"  will  account  for  a 
single  necessary  judgment.     The  principle  of  necessary  in- 
herence is  itself  the  principle  of  all  inference  and  all  proof. 
It  does  not  depend  upon  reasoning,  but  all  reasoning  abso- 
lutely depends  upon  it.     It  is  the  condicio  sine  qua  non  of 
the  syllogism  itself,  for  the  relations  of  major,  middle,  and 
minor  terms   in  particular  are  nothing  but   relations  of 
genus,   species,  and  specimen  in   general.      Inference   is 
simply  a  connecting  or  relating  comprehension  of  necessary 

1  "  Dieses  ist  der  logische  Unterschied  zwischen  Verstand  und  Sinnlich- 
keit,  nach  welchen  diese  nichts,  als  Anschauungen,  jener  hingegen  nichts, 
als  Begriflfe  liefert.  Beide  Grundvermogen  lasseii  sicli  freilich  auch  noch 
von  einer  andern  Seite  betrachten  und  auf  eine  andere  Art  definiren ; 
namlich,  die  Sinnlichkeit  als  ein  Vermogen  der  Receptivitdt,  der  Verstand 
als  ein  Vermogen  der  SporUaneitdi.  AUein  diese  Erklarungsart  ist  nicht 
logisch,  sondern  metaphysisch."  (Kant,  Logik,  Werke,  VIIL  36.)  If 
the  spontaneous  operations  of  the  understanding  are  governed  only  by  its 
own  spontaneous  action,  determined  by  no  assignable  necessity,  it  is  im- 
possible to  explain  the  difference  between  the  valid  syllogism  and  the 
fallacy.  One  is  as  valid  as  the  other,  if  they  are  equally  products  of  mere 
spontaneity.  The  power  to  enact  is  the  power  to  repeal,  and  the  under- 
standing  cannot  bind  itself  to  infer  with  even  "  subjective  necessity," 
unless  there  is  a  higher  "  objective  necessity  "  which  it  can  neither  enact 
nor  repeal.  Hence  the  "pure  concepts  a  priori"  cannot  be  absolute 
categories  in  experience,  if  their  source  is  mere  "spontaneity."  Only 
that  which  cannot  be  otherwise  (Apriori  of  Being)  will  explain  that  which 
cannot  be  thought  otherwise  (Apriori  of  Thought.) 


m 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PUILOSOrHY 


inherences  as  objective  relations.     The   syllogism   proves 
because  Being  syllogizes. 

Canon  6.  The  Syllogism  of  Being  is  the  real  identity  in 
difference  of  genus,  species,  and  specimen,  as  the  unit- 
universal  in  general  — the  One  in  the  Many  and  the  Many 
in  the  One,  the  Absolute  Unit-Universal,  the  Universe,  the 
necessary  constitution  of  the  Absolute  I  as  identity  in  dif- 
ference of  Knower  and  Known.  It  is  the  Unconditioned 
Form  of  Existence. 

Canon  7.  Tlie  Syllogism  of  Thought  is  the  ideal  identity 
in  difference  of  genus,  species,  and  specimen,  as  the  percept- 
concept  of  the  unit-universal  in  general  and  in  particular, 
the  necessary  constitution  of  every  particular  cognition.  It 
is  the  Conditioned  Form  of  Knowledge  of  Existence. 

('anon  8.  The  formal  truth  of  the  syllogism  is  equality 
of  the  consequent  with  the  antecedent  in  part,  that  is,  in 
respect  to  inherence  or  self-mediation  as  form  alone.  In 
every  isolated  syllogism,  the  two  premises  which  consti- 
tute the  antecedent  are  always  two  interdependent  assump- 
tions, a  self-mediated  pair  of  hypotheses,  which  must  be 
"granted"  before  the  conclusion  is  "proved."^  If  their 
self-mediation  is  determined  by  the  self-mediation  of  Being 
in  accordance  with  the  principle  of  inherence,  —  that  is, 
if  the  minor  term  inheres  in  the  middle  and  the  middle 
in  the  major,  —  then  the  consequent,  inferring  explicitly 
through  the  middle  that  the  minor  inheres  in  the  major, 
is  precisely  equal  to  the  antecedent  as  implicitly  self- 
mcdiBted;  the  inherence  which  is  implicit  in  the  ante- 
cedent simply  becomes  explicit  in  the  consequent.  Thus 
the  syllogism,  instead  of  being  a  mere  "begging  of  the 
question,"  is  that  march  of  thought  by  which  the  implicit 
is  converted  into  the  explicit;  and  its  formal  truth  is 
simply  exact  equality  of  the  self-mediation  of  the  conse- 

1  "  Logic  is  only  concerned  with  the  formal  truth,  the  technical 
validity,  of  its  syllogisms,  and  anything  beyond  the  legitimacy  of  the 
consequence  it  draws  from  certain  hypothetical  antecedents  it  does  not 
profess  to  vindicate."     (Sir  W.  Hamilton,  Lectures  on  Logic,  322.) 


THE  SYLLOGISM  IN  GENERAL 


37 


quent,  as  evolved,  with  the  self -mediation  of  the  antecedent, 
as  already  involved.  In  other  words,  logical  sequence,  as 
"subjective  necessity,"  is  Thought  becoming  aware  of  the 
universal  self-equality  of  the  involved  with  the  evolved  in  all 
evolution  of  Being,  the  eternal  identity  of  Being  with  itself, 
as  "  objective  necessity."  Whenever  this  equality  obtains  in 
a  syllogism,  the  syllogism  itself,  irrespective  of  the  material 
significance  of  its  three  judgments,  is  formally  true,  — that 
is,  is  valid  as  the  empty  form  of  every  partwular  cognition. 
Canon  9.  The  material  truth  of  the  syllogism  is  equality 
of  the  consequent  with  the  antecedent  as  wholes,  that  is, 
not  only  with  respect  to  inherence  or  self-mediation  as 
form  alone,  but  also  with  respect  to  material  or  substantial 

significance. 

The  material  truth  of  the  minor  term  as  a  percept,  that 
is,  the  agreement  of  the  percept  with  the  object  perceived, 
can  never  be  proved  by  reasoning  ;  but  by  continued  obser- 
vation and  experiment,  by  comparison  of  repeated  observa- 
tions, by  use  of  instruments  which  augment  the  observing 
powers,  by  co-operation  of  many  observers,  and  so  forth, 
the  percept  may  be  purified,  deepened,  enlarged,  corrected, 
verified,  yet  never  brought  to  absolute  adequacy  with  an 
inexhaustible  object.  The  material  truth  of  the  middle  and 
major  terms  as  concepts,  likewise,  so  far  as  concepts  are 
founded  in  percepts,  is  subject  to  the  same  experiential 
limitation;  but,  so  far  as  they  are  abstractions  from  per- 
cepts, that  is,  so  far  as  they  are  conceptual  comprehen- 
sions of  specific  and  generic  essence,  their  material  truth 
is  determinable  by  reason. 

The  minor  premise,  therefore,  remains  always  the  sub- 
sumption  of  a  percept  under  a  concept ;  it  brings  of  neces- 
sity an  empirical  yet  essential  element  into  every  possible 
syllogism,  and  renders  chimerical  that  dream  of  separating 
reason  and  experience  which  is  the  inveterate  illusion  of 
the  Begriffsphilosophie ;  ^   and  its  material  truth  must  be 

1  "...  an  dessen  Statt  ich  es  lediglich  mit  der  Vernunft  selbst  und 
ihrem  reinen  Denken  zu  thun  habe,  nach  deren  ausfiihrlicher  Kenntniss 


38 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


determined  by  experience.  The  major  premise,  however, 
remains  always  the  subsumption  of  one  concept  under 
another  concept ;  and  its  material  truth  as  a  valid  universal 
principle  must  be  determined  by  reason.  This  rational 
validification  of  the  major  premise  happens  with  perfect 
cogency  only  when  the  principle  itself  stands  as  the  con- 
clusion of  a  prosy  11  ogism  in  the  regress  to  conditions ;  that 
is,  when  it  can  be  traced  back  through  a  series  or  chain  of 
prosyllogisms  to  a  larger  principle  which  is  conditioned  by 
nothing  but  the  Apriori  of  Being  itself.  Such  a  series 
of  prosyllogisms,  including  and  completing  the  given  syllo- 
gism, constitutes  the  grounded  and  filled  form  of  a  particular 
cognition. 

§  169.  Thus  it  is  only  as  the  syllogism,  only  as  the 
experientially  filled  and  rationally  grounded  form  of  the 
percept-concept,  only  as  that  immanent  relational  consti- 
tution of  every  actual  or  possible  cognition  which,  as  itself 
an  object  of  knowledge,  is  determined,  not  by  the  Apriori 
of  Thought  as  Kant's  mere  "spontaneity  of  the  under- 
standing," but  by  the  Apriori  of  Being  as  absolute  condition 
of  the  understanding  itself,  that  knowledge  can  be  said  to 
have  real  existence.  The  individual  subject  may  be  as 
completely  unconscious  of  the  epistemological  laws  it  obeys 

ich  nicht  welt  am  mich  suchen  darf,  well  ich  sie  in  mir  selbst  antrefTe  und 
wovon  mir  auch  schon  die  gemeine  Logik  ein  Beispiel  gibt,  dass  sicb  alle 
ihre  einfachen  Handlungen  vollig  und  systematisch  aufzahlen  lassen  ;  nur 
dass  hier  die  Frage  aufgeworfen  wird,  wie  viel  ich  mit  derselben,  wenn 
mir  aller  Stoff  und  Beistand  der  £rfahrung  genommen  wird,  etwa  aus- 
zurichten  hoffen  diirfe."  (Kant,  Kritik  der  reinen  Vernunft,  Vorrede  zur 
ersten  Ausgabe,  Werke,  III.  8.)  The  conception  of  logic  as  a  purely 
formal  or  exclusively  rational  science  disappears,  of  course,  just  as  soon  as 
it  is  perceived  that  experience  enters  of  necessity  into  the  syllogism  to- 
gether with  the  minor  premise,  not  to  mention  the  experience  which  lurks 
in  the  background  of  every  concept,  however  abstract.  The  empirical- 
rational  constitution  of  the  syllogism  itself,  determined  as  such  by  the 
Apriori  of  Being  because  it  "cannot  be  otherwise,"  puts  an  end  to  the 
"hope"  of  accomplishing  anything  without  the  "  material  and  a8sist:»nce 
of  experience"  —  an  end,  therefore,  to  the  dream  of  "pure  apriori 
knowledge." 


THE  SYLLOGISM  IN  GENERAL 


39 


in  all  its  knowing,  as  the  bee  is  unconscious  of  the  geo- 
metrical laws  it  obeys  in  all  its  honeycomb-building ;  but 
the  laws  are  there,  and  they  must  be  obeyed.    Knowledge 
consists  in  conscious  subsumption  of  the  singular  and  the 
particular  under  the  universal  —  in  conscious  solution,  as 
it  were,  of  the  empirical  in  the  rational,  and  precipitation 
of  their  crystalline  union  in  the  form  of  the  percept-concept 
or  syllogism,  no  matter  how  disguised  the  crystals  may  be 
by  their  own  conglomerations,  transformations,  or  recom- 
binations in  the  metamorphic  bedrock  of  human  knowledge. 
Or  —  changing  the  comparison  —  the  doctrine  of  syllogistic 
which  results  from  the  law  of  unit-universals  as  the  Syllo- 
gism of  Being,  namely,  that  the  Syllogism  of  Thought  is 
the  typical   form   of  every  actual   or   possible   cognition 
through  the  necessary  identity  in  difference  of  experience 
and  reason  in  the  Syllogism  of  Knowledge,  becomes  the 
cell-theory  of  all  living  intelligence,  (1)  as  the  organized 
.    world-knowledge  of  the  Human  We,  and  (2)  as  the  organ- 
ized self-knowledge  of  the  Absolute  I. 

§  170.  But  we  must  push  further  our  inquiry  whether 
the  logical  necessity  of  the  syllogism,  in  which  consists  all 
the  finality  or  conclusiveness  of  demonstration  itself,  is  at 
bottom  a  merely  rational  necessity  (Apriori  of  Thought)  or 
an  absolute  necessity  (Apriori  of  Being)  —  whether  apodeic- 
ticity  itself  lies  in  a  proximate  "  it  cannot  he  thought  other- 
wise" or  in  an  ultimate  "it  cannot  he  otherwise."  The 
decision  must  lie  in  the  essential  relations  of  thought  and 

existence. 

To  exist  is  to  be  something ;  for  the  only  possible  alter- 
natives are  to  be  something  or  to  be  nothing,  and  to  be 
nothing  is  not  to  exist.  But  to  be  something  is  to  be  a 
thing  of  some  kind;  for  to  be  a  thing  of  no  kind  is  to  be  no 
kind  of  thing,  that  is,  to  be  nothing,  which  is,  again,  not  to 
exist.  It  follows  that  thing  and  kind  reciprocally  condi- 
tion each  other,  and  are  inseparably  related  in  existence. 
There  can  be  no  separation  of  thing  and  kind,  or  of  indi- 
viduality and  universality,  but  the  distinction  between  them 


40 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  SYLLOGISM  IN  GENERAL 


41 


W 


is  involved  in  the  very  nature  and  possibility  of  existence 
as  a  world  of  things,  a  universe  of  units,  identity  in  differ- 
ence of  the  Many  and  the  One. 

Now  this  necessity  is  unconditional,  absolute,  ontological 
as  well  as  logical.  It  lies  in  the  very  nature  of  existence 
as  such,  and  can  be  in  no  way  deduced  or  derived  from  the 
nature  of  thought  as  thought.  Existence  is  the  absolute 
priiLs  of  thought,  not  the  reverse  :  both  the  subject  and  the 
object  of  thought  must  exists  or  else  thought  is  impossible. 
If  thought  itself  exists,  it  can  exist  only  as  subject  to  and 
conditioned  by  this  absolute  ontological  necessity.  Thought 
as  existent  can  exist  only  under  the  unconditional  condition 
of  all  existence:  to  wit,  that  it  shall  be  a  something,  a 
thing  of  some  kind,  a  thinking  of  the  thinking-kind,  an  in- 
dividualized thought  (Begriff)  in  thought  as  a  universal 
(begreifen).  For,  if  thought  is  not  a  thinking  it  is  no 
thinking,  and  does  not  exist  as  thinking  or  thought  at  all ; 
it  cannot  exist  as  mere  abstract  or  formless  Being  (Sein\ 
but  only  as  concrete  or  formed  Existence  (Dasein)  in  a  de- 
terminate thing  of  a  determinate  kind  {Etwds  determined 
as  this  particular  and  no  other  Begriff),  More  specifically, 
the  constitutive  existential  determinations  or  objective  re- 
lations of  genus,  species,  and  specimen,  which  inhere  in  the 
form  of  immanent  relational  constitution  of  every  possible 
sense-object,  inhere  no  less  in  the  form  or  immanent  rela- 
tional constitution  of  every  possible  thought-object,  the 
Begriff  des  Begriffes  or  vorja-iq  voijo-cto?  itself  not  excepted. 
For  these  relations  are  the  aboriginal  groundform,  the  pos- 
sibility itself,  of  Existence  as  a  universe  of  Existents,  iden- 
tity in  difference  of  the  One  and  the  Many.  They  are  the 
condition  of  all  thoughts  of  all  beings  because  they  are  the 
condition  of  all  beings  themselves;  they  are  the  Apriori  of 
Being  itself,  and  for  that  reason  the  Apriori  of  Thought 
and  the  Apriori  of  Knowledge,  too.  They  are  not  the 
causes  of  any  existence,  neither  are  they  the  limits  of  any 
knowledge;  they  are  simply  the  absolute  condition  of  all 
existence  and  all  knowledge,  without  which  neither  could 


be  —  that  absolute  form  of  both  without  which  nothing 
could  either  be  or  be  thought.  In  other  words,  the  unit- 
universal,  as  identity  in  difference  of  generic  plus  specific 
pltis  reific  essence,  as  only  one  specimen  of  only  oue  species 
of  only  one  genus,  is  the  most  general  formula  of  the  thing 
in  itself,  as  the  only  possible  object  of  knowledge;  and  the 
law  of  unit-universals  formulates  that  "  objective  necessity  " 
which  to  Kant  was  only  an  "  illusion,"  yet  without  which  the 
♦'subjective  necessity"  of  his  "pure  judgments  apriori'' 
ceases  to  be  necessity  altogether,  and  becomes  the  merely 
actual  and  empirical  working  of  an  "  organization  "  of  "  pure 
reason  "  which  he  does  not  pretend  to  account  for,  but  as- 
sumes to  exist  as  a  mere  matter  of  fact,  inexplicable  by  us. 

§  171.  This  point  is  of  paramount  importance  to  philos- 
ophy. Are  the  necessities  of  thought,  above  all  the  apo- 
deicticity  or  logical  necessity  of  the  syllogism,  without  any 
deeper  root  than  a  certain  actual  constitution  of  "pure 
reason,"  for  which  no  reason  can  be  rendered  ?  Or  are  all 
necessities  of  thought  ultimately  determined  by  deeper  ne- 
cessities of  being,  and  is  the  actual  constitution  of  reason 
itself  at  bottom  necessary  —  in  other  words,  what  it  is 
because  it  cannot  be  otherwise?  According  to  Kant,  tha 
human  intellect  cannot  penetrate  deeper  than  to  mere 
"subjective  necessity,"  and  is  powerless  to  reach  an  ob- 
jective or  absolute  necessity  in  the  nature  of  "things  in 
themselves,"  —  a  notion  which  he  pronounces  to  be  an 
«  unavoidable  illusion."  (See  above,  §  155,  and  note,)  But, 
according  to  what  has  been  here  argued,  the  law  of  unit- 
universals  is  of  subjective  necessity  in  Thought  because  it 
is  of  absolute  necessity  in  the  Being  which  determines  and 
conditions  all  Thought.  The  arguments  already  adduced 
appear  to  be  conclusive,  and  to  need  no  further  enforce- 
ment; but  these  additional  considerations  are  entitled  to 
no  small  weight. 

§  172.  Kant  teaches  (1)  that  necessity  and  universality 
are  the  essential  characteristics  and  indispensable  criteria 
of  synthetic  judgments  a  priori;  (2)  that  all  judgments 


u 


42 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


a  priori  are  derived  from  pure  reason  alone ;  and  (3)  that 
pure  reason  itself,  as  pure  "spontaneity  of  knowledge,"* 
is  derived  from  nothing,  but  founds  a  science  of  itself  as 
the  "organization  of  an  entire  special  faculty  of  knowl- 
edge.''  ^  Thus  both  the  essential  constitution  and  the  whole 
operation  of  pure  reason  stand  in  the  Kantian  system  as  a 
mere  matter  of  fact,  the  ultimate  fact  which  explains  all 
other  facts,  but  is  itself  unrationalized,  unexplained,  unde- 
rived,  unrelated  even  to  a  knowable  I;  and  its  "subjective 
necessity,"  the  only  necessity  that  is  real  and  not  an 
"illusion,"  springs  solely  out  of  its  own  "spontaneity." 
What  is  the  logical  implication  of  these  positions  ?  Cer- 
tain very  important  consequences,  as  follows ;  — 

I.  That  Kant's  "  subjective  necessity/  "  loses  itself  in  mere 
actuality.  For,  if  the  human  understanding  is  nothing  but 
the  "  spontaneity  of  knowledge,"  and  if  spontaneity  is  noth- 
ing but  non-necessity,  and  if  no  stream  can  ever  rise  higher 
than  its  source,  the  "subjective  necessity"  which  flows 
merely  from  spontaneity  can  never  rise  above  the  level  of 
the  non-necessary,  the  merely  actual. 

In  truth,  Kant's  critical  idealism  or  rationalistic  subjec- 
tivism shows  in  this  consequence  its  vulnerable  Achilles- 
heel.  It  would  explain  the  "necessity  and  universality" 
of  "synthetic  judgments  a  priori"  by  that  of  pure  reason 
itself,  as  their  exclusive  source;  but  pure  reason  turns 
out  to  be  pure  "spontaneity"  —  not  necessity  at  all,  but 
non-necessity.     Surely,  there  can  be  no  necessity  in  any 

1  "Wollen  wir  die  Receptxmt&b  unseres  Gemiiths,  Vorstellungen  zu 
cmpfangen,  so  fern  es  anf  irgend  eine  Weise  afficirt  wird,  Sinnlichkeii 
nennen,  so  ist  dagegen  das  Vermogen,  Vorstellungen  selbst  hervorzu- 
bringen,  oder  die  Sfwntancitdt  des  Erkenntnisses,  der  Verstand."  (Kritik 
der  reinen  Vernunft,  Einleitung,  Werke,  IIL  82  :  cf.  114,  115.) 

2  "Hier  ist  nun  ein  solcher  Plan,  nach  vollendetem  Werke,  der  nun- 
mehr  nach  analytisoher  Methode  angelegt  sein  darf,  da  das  Werk  selbst 
durchaus  nach  synthetischer  Lehrart  abgefasst  sein  musste,  damit  die 
Wissenschaft  alle  ihre  Articulationen,  ala  den  Gliederbau  eines  ganzen 
besonderen  Erkenntnissvermogens,  in  seiner  natiirlichen  Verbindung  vor 
Augen  stelle."    (Prolegomena,  u.  s.  w.,  Vorrede,  Werke,  IV.  11.) 


THE  SYLLOGISM  IN  GENERAL 


43 


judgment  whatever  which  proceeds  exclusively  from  non- 
necessity in  the  judging  subject;  a  judgment  is  necessary 
only   when  it  cannot  be  otherwise,  and,  if  it  cannot  be 
otherwise,  the  subject  is  necessitated  to  make  either  that 
judgment  or  none.     But  this  is  necessity,  not  spontaneity, 
in  the  judging  subject  itself.     What  determines  it  ?     The 
nature  of  the  object  judged.     There  is  no  other  possible 
determinant  of  a  particular  necessary  judgment,  whether 
analytic  or  synthetic;  its  necessity  must  be  immanent  in 
itself.    Knowledge  is  judging  an  object  as  it  is,  ignorance 
is  not  judging  it  as  it  is,  error  is  judging  it  as  it  is  not, 
and  that,  too,  absolutely  irrespective  of  any  spontaneity  in 
the  judging  subject,  which  must  be  limited  to  the  option 
of  judging  or  not  judging.    According  to  Kant  himself,  the 
"faculty  of  judgment"  is  identical  with  the  "faculty  of 
thought."  ^    Now  there  is  unquestionably  a  real  spontaneity 
of  thought,  because  thought,  when  it  considers  an  object, 
may  be  either  knowledge  or  error ;  and,  further,  it  may  or 
may  not  consider  it.      But  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a 
"  spontaneity  of  knowledge,"  since,  in  order  to  be  knowl- 
edge, thought  must  judge  the  object  as  it  is.     Yet  a  real 
"  spontaneity  of  knowledge,"  as  the  real  existence  of  pure 
reason  or  the  understanding,  is  the  fundamental  assump- 
tion of  the  Kantian  subjectivism,  which  makes  knowledge 
itself  depend  wholly  on  the  subject  and  not  at  all  on  the 
object,  inasmuch  as  it  makes  the  subject  "spontaneously" 
create  the  object  as  concept,  and  with  it  all  knowledge  of 
it.    In  this  way  we  can  easily  comprehend  how  Kant  came 
to  conceive  the  understanding  as  a  real  "spontaneity  of 
knowledge,"  although  we  cannot  easily  comprehend  how  so 
keen  a  mind  came  to  suppose  that  "'  spontaneity  "  generates 
"  subjective  necessity,"  that  being  clearly  impossible.     But 
he  found  necessity  among  his  twelve  categories  or  pure 
concepts  a  priori,  and  he  found  the  understanding,  whence 
he  derived  them,  to  be  nothing  but  a  "spontaneity  of 

1  •*  .  .  .  Vermogen  zu  urtheilen,   welches  eben  so  viel  ist,  als  das 
Vermogen  zu  denken."    (Werke,  III.  101.) 


44 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


knowledge ; "  hence  he  had  no  option  but  to  derive  neces- 
sity from  spontaneity.  In  this,  the  rationalistic  subjectiv- 
ism of  Kant  blindly  imitated  the  empiricistic  subjectivism 
of  Hume :  if  the  former  found  necessity  in  the  spontaneity 
of  pure  reason,  the  latter  found  it  in  the  spontaneity  of 
pure  experience.^  They  agreed  in  finding  no  necessity  save 
in  the  subject.  "  Necessity  is  something  that  exists  in  the 
mind,  not  in  objects,"  said  Hume.  "  The  subjective  neces- 
sity of  a  certain  combination  of  our  concepts  in  the  service 
of  the  understanding  is  taken  for  an  objective  necessity  of 
the  determination  of  things  in  themselves.  This  is  an  illu- 
siorif  but  it  cannot  be  avoided,"  said  Kant.  Both  agreed  in 
denying  objective  necessity,  in  affirming  subjective  neces- 
sity, and  in  deriving  subjective  necessity  from  mere  spon- 
taneity. But  out  of  mere  spontaneit}',  or  non-necessity,  no 
necessity  of  any  kind  can  proceed  in  fact  or  be  derived  in 
thought.    It  is  subjective  necessity  ungrounded  in  objective 

1  '*The  idea  of  necessity  arises  from  some  impression.  There  is  no 
impression  conveyed  by  our  senses  which  can  give  rise  to  that  idea.  It 
must,  therefore,  be  derived  from  some  internal  impression,  or  impression 
of  reflection.  There  is  no  internal  impression  which  has  any  relation  to 
the  present  business  but  that  propensity  which  custom  pro<luces  to  pass 
from  an  object  to  the  idea  of  its  usual  attendant.  This,  therefore,  is  the 
essence  of  necessity.  Upon  the  whole,  necessity  is  something  that  exists 
in  the  mind,  not  in  objects  ;  nor  is  it  possible  for  us  ever  to  form  the  most 
distant  idea  of  it,  considered  as  a  quality  in  bodies.  Either  we  have  no 
idea  of  necessity,  or  necessity  is  nothing  but  that  determination  of  the 
thought  to  pass  from  causes  to  effects,  and  from  etfects  to  causes,  according 
to  their  experienced  union.  Thus,  as  the  necessity  which  makes  two  timoB 
two  equal  four,  or  three  angles  of  a  triangle  equal  to  two  right  ones,  lies 
only  in  the  act  of  the  understanding  by  which  we  consider  and  compare 
these  ideas  [i.  e.  in  the  understanding  as  the  spontaneity  of  knowledge, 
governed  by  experience  or  custom  a  posteriori  1 ;  in  like  manner,  the 
necessity  of  power  which  unites  causes  and  effects  lies  in  the  determination 
of  the  mind  to  pass  from  the  one  to  the  other.  The  efficacy  or  energy  of 
causes  is  neither  placed  in  the  causes  themselves,  nor  in  the  Deity,  nor  in 
the  concurrence  of  these  two  principles,  but  belongs  entirely  to  the  soul, 
which  considers  the  union  of  two  or  more  objects  in  all  past  instances.  It 
is  here  that  the  real  power  of  causes  is  placed,  along  with  their  connection 
and  necessity."     (Hmiip,  Philosophical  Works,  I.  212,  213,  ed.  1854.) 


I 


THE  SYLLOGISM  IN  GENERAL 


45 


necessity  which  is  the  "  illusion ; "  but  this  "  illusion  "  can 
be  "  avoided  "  by  reasoning  rightly. 

II.  That,  if  there  is  an*/  real  necessity  at  all  in  human 
kno^vledge,  whether  in  viathematlcs  or  ethics^  in  logic  or 
physics  or  metaphysics,  it  mnst  rest  at  bottom  upon  absolute 
or  objective  necessity  in  the  iiature  of  thin (js,  as  its  absolute 
condition.  For  it  is  only  as  modes  of  existence  that  knowl- 
edge and  thought  exist,  and,  consequently,  whatever  thought 
contains,  being  contains.  If  the  converse  is  also  true,  that 
whatever  being  contains,  thought  contains,  it  can  be  true 
only  on  the  condition  that  thought  and  being  are  identical 
in  difference  as  the  Absolute  I.  Even  the  "conditions  of 
existence"  are  themselves  modes  of  existence;  whence  it 
follows  that  Being  includes  its  own  Apriori,  —  that  the 
Apriori  of  Being  is  immanent  in  Being  itself,  as  its  abso- 
lute necessity  to  be,  and  its  absolute  impossibility  not  to 
be.  It  is  this  absolute  and  immanent  objective  necessity  in 
existence  which  is  the  ground  and  explanation,  the  only 
possible  why,  of  subjective  necessity  in  knowledge  ;  it  is 
the  ultimate  fact  of  facts,  because  it  is  a  fact  which  is  not 
"  spontaneity,"  but  a  fact  which  cannot  be  otherwise. 

When  Kant  sought  to  establish  the  condition  of  indi- 
vidual human  consciousness  in  the  "  subjective  necessity  " 
of  a  universal  human  consciousness,  it  was  a  great  stride 
forward  in  philosophy.  If  he  had  followed  it  up  by  estalv 
lishing  the  condition  of  this  "subjective  necessity,"  not  in 
liis  illusory  "spontaneity  of  knowledge,"  but  in  the  real 
"  objective  necessity  "  which  alone  can  explain  it  and  which 
he  mistook  for  the  "  illusion,"  he  would  have  escaped  the 
intellectual  futilities  of  rationalistic  subjectivism  and  suc- 
ceeded in  planting  philosophy  upon  the  rational  objectivism 
of  science.  For,  despite  all  the  vagaries  of  subjectivism 
and  idealism  and  phaenomenism  in  certain  half-philoso- 
phized scientific  men,  science  itself  in  all  ages  has  remained 
true  to  the  spirit  and  principle  of  Greek  realism,  and  refused 
to  surrender  the  strictly  scientific  ideal  of  Aristotle,  earcv 
inurryfiq  tis  y  Oeiopei  to  ov  y  oi/  koL  to.  tovtw  inrdpxpvTa  KaB  auro. 


V 


I' 


46 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PfflLOSOPHY 


III.  That  the  permanent  interests  of  philosophy  demand 
imperatively  a  better  eplstemoloyy  than  the  Kantian  thex)ry 
of  knowledfje.  For  this  "  theory  of  knowledge,"  reducing 
our  sensibility  or  "  receptivity  "  to  experience  of  unknow- 
able objects  and  our  understanding  or  "  spontaneity  "  to 
generation  of  pure  a  priori  forms  of  this  experience  out  of 
an  unknowable  subject,  reduces  our  "knowledge  "  itself  to 
the  mere  relation  of  an  unknowable  subject  to  unknowable 
objects  :  that  is,  to  a  merely  formal  relation  of  the  unformed 
to  the  unfortned.  But  it  thereby  reduces  itself  to  a  theory, 
not  of  knowledge  at  all,  but  of  necessary  and  universal 
ignorance.  It  becomes  an  abstract  and  empty  formalism, 
with  neither  rational  subject  nor  empirical  object  which 
can  be  known  —  some  positive  or  real  knowledge  of  both 
being  the  logical  condition  of  knowledge  even  of  their 
merely  formal  relations. 

Nevertheless,  it  endeavors,  through  a  highly  complicated 
mechanism  of  a  priori  forms  of  sensibility  and  a  priori 
categories  of  the  understanding  and  a  priori  regulative 
ideas  of  the  reason,  to  explain  how  the  I,  as  an  "  unknown 
X,"  absolutely  generates  out  of  the  understanding,  as  pure 
"spontaneity  of  knowledge,"  the  vast  network  of  Rela- 
tions which  science  observes,  studies,  and  investigates  as 
the  given  system  of  Nature.  Thus  its  germinal,  organic, 
and  constitutive  principle  is  that  of  the  exclusive  Subject- 
ivity OF  Relations,  as  opposed  to  the  scientific  principle  of 
the  Objectivity  of  Relations.  It  is  this  principle  of  the 
exclusive  subjectivity  of  relations  which  logically  deter- 
mines the  conception  of  the  understanding  itself  as  a  pure 
"  spontaneity  of  knowledge : "  this  is,  as  a  universal  com- 
bining or  relating  self-activity,  by  whose  spontaneous  act 
alone  (Actus  der  Spontaneitat^  Synthesis  a  priori)  every  par- 
ticular combination  or  relation  {Verhindung,  conjunctio, 
synthesis)  absolutely  originates.^     From  this  "act  of  spon- 

1  "...  ein  Actus  der  Spontaneitat  der  Vorstellunjipkraft  .  .  .  eine  Ver- 
standeshandlung,  die  wir  mit  der  allgemeinen  Benennung  Synthesis  belegen 
werden,  um  dadurch  zugleich  bemerklich  zu  machen,  dasa  wir  uns  nicbts 


THE  SYLLOGISM  IN  GENERAL 


47 


taneity  "  or  "  synthesis  a  priori,''  every  "  synthetic  judgment 
a  priori''  derives  its  exclusively   "subjective   necessity," 
and  becomes  thereby  universally  valid  in  the  sensuous  ex- 
perience of  which   it  is  the   intellectual   form.     In  this 
manner  Kant  solves  the  fundamental  problem  of  his  entire 
Erkenntnisstheorie :  namely,  how  to  explain  the  necessity 
and  universality  of  "  synthetic  judgments  a  priori,"     This 
solution  of  the  problem,  of  course,  is  no  solution  to  any  one 
who  puts  the  unanswerable  question :  how  can  necessity, 
in  any  synthetic  judgment  whatever,  emanate  from  pure 
spontaneity,  pure  non-necessity,  in  the  synthetizing  under- 
standing ?     But  the  doctrine  itself  is  clear ;  all  combina- 
tions, that  is,  all  relations,  are  "pure  syntheses  a  priori," 
and  exist  in  thought  only  as  the  spontaneous  or  non-necessary 
work  of  thought;  no  relations  whatever  exist  in  being;  the 
understanding  determines  all  things,  but  is  itself  determined 
by  nothing.     This,  in  its  rationalistic  form,  is  the  doctrine 
of  the  exclusive  subjectivity  of  relations ;  that  is,  deriva- 
tion of  them  from  the  subject  alone,  acting  through  the 
understanding  as  the  pure  "  spontaneity  of  knowledge."     It 
follows  apodeictically,  however,  that  no  synthetic  judgment 
can  be,  in  the  last  analysis,  any  more  necessary  than  that 
non-necessary  act  of  the  understanding  which  is  itself  the 
synthesis,  —  that,   since   all  "synthesis  a  priori"  is  non- 
necessary,  no  "  synthetic  judgment  a  priori "  can  be  neces- 

als  im  Objecte  verbunden  vorstellen  konnen,  ohne  es  vorher  selbst  ver- 
bunden  zu  babeu,  und  unter  alien  Vorstellungen  die  Ferbindung  die  ein- 
zige  ist,  die  uicht  durch  Objecte  gegeben,  sondern  nur  vom  Subjecte  selbst 
verricbtet  werden  kann,  weil  sie  ein  Actus  seiner  Selbsttbatigkeit  ist." 
(Kritik  der  reinen  Vemunft,  Werke,  III.  lU,  115.)  -".  .  .  die  ver- 
anderte  Methode  der  Denkungsart  .  .  .  dass  wir  namlicb  von  den  Dingen 
nur  das  a  priori  erkennen,  was  wir  selbst  in  sie  legen."  {Ibid.  III.  19.) 
—  "...  die  Principien  der  Synthesis  a  prion,  als  worum  es  uns  nur  zu 
thun'ist."  {Ibid.  III.  49.)  — ''Erscheinungen  sind  nur  Vorstellungen 
von  Dingen,  die  nach  dem,  was  sie  an  sich  sein  mogen,  unerkannt  da  smd. 
Als  blose  Vorstellungen  aber  stebeu  sie  unter  gar  keinem  Gesetze  der  Ver- 
kniipfung,  als  demjenigen,  welches  das  verkniipfende  Vermogen  vor- 
•    schreibt."    {Ibid,  III.  134.) 


48 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  SYLLOGISM  IN  GENERAL 


49 


in 


sary.  In  other  words,  when  Kant  tries  to  prove  that 
"  synthetic  judgments  a  priori  "  are  necessary,  because  all 
"  synthesis  a  priori "  is  spontaneous  or  non-necessary,  he 
unwittingly  rests  his  proof  on  the  proposition  that  necessity 
=  non-necessity.  This  surprising  but  undeniable  self-con- 
tradiction is  the  reductio  ad  ahsardum  of  the  genetic  principle 
of  the  whole  Erkenntnisstheorie.  Is  it  not  self-evident  that 
philosophy  needs  a  better  epistemology? 

§  173.  But  there  can  be  no  epistemology  better  than  the 
subjectivistic  theory  of  knowledge  (which,  strange  to  say, 
either  as  rationalism  or  as  empiricism,  has  dominated  the 
philosophic  world  for  more  than  a  century  and  seems  to 
dominate  it  still),  unless  we  go  to  the  bottom  and  once  for 
all  renounce  the  cramping  subjectivistic  principle  itself  — 
namely,  the  principle  of  the  subjectivity  of  relations. 
Hume  was  no  less  an  adherent  to  this  principle  than  Kant, 
who  indeed  confessed  that  he  had  been  awakened  by  Hume 
from  his  "  dogmatic  slumber,"  but  might  better  have  con- 
fessed that  he  had  been  put  by  Hume  into  a  subjectivistic, 
hypnotic  trance.  Be  this  as  it  may,  Hume  no  less  than 
Kant  denied  all  knowledge  of  connection,  combination,  or 
relation  in  or  between  things  in  themselves.*     Both  equally 

1  "There  is  no  object  which  impHos  the  existence  of  any  other,  if  we 
consider  these  objects  in  themselves  and  never  look  beyond  the  ideua 
which  we  form  of  them."  (Hume,  Philosophical  Works,  L  116.) —  •*  Ob- 
jects have  no  discoverable  connection  together ;  nor  is  it  from  any  other 
principle  but  custom  operating  upon  the  imagination  that  we  can  draw 
any  inference  from  the  appearance  of  one  to  the  existence  of  another." 
{IHd.  I.  137.) — "Now  nothing  is  more  evident  than  that  the  human 
mind  cannot  form  such  an  idea  of  two  objects  as  to  conceive  any  connec* 
tion  between  them."  {Ibid.  I.  208.)—  "The  very  nature  and  essence  of 
relation  is  to  connect  otir  ideas  with  each  other,  and  upon  appearance 
of  one  to  facilitate  the  transition  to  its  correlative."  {Ibid.  I.  256.)  — 
"  When  we  say,  therefore,  that  one  object  is  connected  with  another,  we 
mean  only  that  they  have  acquired  a  connection  in  our  thought,  and  gave 
rise  to  this  inference,  by  which  they  become  proofs  of  each  other's  exist- 
ence ;  a  conclusion  which  is  somewhat  extraordinary,  but  which  seems 
founded  on  sufficient  evidence."     {IhUi.  IV.  86.) 

Hume,  in  turn,  seems  to  have  derived  the  inspiration  of  his  own  sub- 


i 


affirmed  "  subjective  necessity,"  the  one  as  empirical  "  cus- 
tom "  or  "  association  of  ideas,"  and  the  other  as  rational 
"  synthesis  a  priori  "  or  "  spontaneity  of  knowledge,  "  and 
they  equally  interpreted  it  as  the  subjectivity  of  all  rela- 
tions ;  and  they  both  equally  rejected  "  objective  necessity," 
as  the  objectivity  of  any  relations.  These  two  principles  of 
(1)  subjective  necessity  alone,  and  (2)  objective  necessity 
and  subjective  necessity  together,  or  absolute  necessity,  lie 
at  the  foundation  of  the  irrepressible  conflict  between  the 
subjectivism  of  unmodernized  philosophy  and  the  object- 
ivism of  modern  science :  a  conflict  which  has  as  many  forms 
as  Proteus,  but  under  all  is  itself  one  and  the  same. 

These  two  principles  are  alike  productive  of  consequences. 

jectivism   from  Locke  :    "  General  and  universal  belong  not  to  the  real 
existence  of  things,  but  are  the  inventions  and  creatures  of  the  under- 
standing, made  by  it  for  its  own  use,  aud  concern   only  signs,  whether 
words  or  ideas.     Words  are  general,  as  has  been  said,  when  used  for  signs 
of  general  ideas,  and  so  are  applicable  indifferently  to  many  particular 
things  ;  and  ideas  are  general  when  they  are  set  up  as  the  representatives 
of  many  particular  things ;  but  universality  belongs  not  to  things  them- 
selves, which  are  all  of  them  particular  in  thi^ir  existence,  even  those 
words* and  ideas  which  in  their  signification  are  general.     When,  therefore, 
we  quit  particulars,  the  generals  that  rest  are  only  creatures  of  our  own 
making  ;  their  general  nature  being  nothing  but  the  capacity  they  are  put 
into  by  the  understanding  of  signifying  or  representing  many  particulars; 
for  the  signification  they  have  is  nothing  but  a  relation  that  by  the  mind 
of  man  is  added  to  them."     (Essay  of  Human  Understanding,  Bk.  III. 
Ch.  III.  §  11.)— '*  What  are  the  essences  of  those  species  set  out  and 
marked  by  names,  but  those  abstract  ideas  in  the  mind  which  are,  as  it 
were,  the  bonds  between  particular  things  that  exist,  and  the  names  they 
are  to  be  ranked  under  ?    And  when  general  names  have  any  connexion 
with  particular  beings,  these  abstract  ideas  are  the  medium  that  unites 
them  ;  so  that  the  essences  of  species,  as  distinguished  and  denominated 
by  us,  neither  are  nor  can  be  anything  but  those  precise  abstract  ideas 
we  have  in  our  minds."     {Ibid.  Bk.  III.  Ch.  III.  §  13.) 

It  would  be  useless  to  multiply  illustrations  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
exclusive  subjectivity  of  relations,  as  held  in  modern  philosophy.  It  was 
a  legacy  from  medijeval  nominalism  and  conceptualism,  of  which  Kant  was 
the  scientific  formulator.  But  it  will  be  unable  to  compete  with  the 
doctrine  of  the  objectivity  of  relations,  as  the  influence  of  Darwinism 
makes  itself  felt  more  and  more  in  undermining  the  AristoteUan  Paradox. 

VOL.  II.  —  4 


50 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


1i 


|l 


Precisely  as  subjectivism  determines  the  conception  of  the 
understanding  to  be  pure  "  spontaneity,"  either  of  reason 
or  of  experience,  because  no  other  conception  of  it  could 
account  for  the  subjective  origin  of  all  relations  in  the 
"  spontaneity  of  knowledge ; "  precisely  so  does  objectivism 
determine  the  conception  of  the  understanding  to  be  prim- 
arily perceptivitif,  because  no  other  conception  of  it  could 
account  for  the  objective  origin  of  all  ultimate  relations  of 
thought  itself  in  the  necessary  perceptibility  of  all  relations 
as  suchy  whether  in  thought  or  in  being.  It  ought  to  be 
considered  axiomatic  that  no  relation  can  be  understood  if  it 
cannot  be  perceived,  —  that  the  perceiving  of  it  is  itself  the 
understanding  of  it.  Yet  non-perception  of  this  self-evident 
truth  is  the  very  source  of  subjectivism  itself,  the  ground 
of  its  inability  to  perceive  the  logical  and  epistemological 
condition  of  the  "  subjective  necessity  "  which  it  affirms  in 
the  "  objective  necessity  "  which  it  denies.  Witness  Kant*s 
strenuous  and  repeated  denials  of  the  possibility  of  a  per- 
ceptive or  intuitive  understanding  in  man,  while  yet  he  ad- 
mits its  possibility  in  general ;  for,  although  it  seems  absurd 
to  hold  that  a  man  can  understand  relations  without  perceiv- 
ing them,  the  admission  of  a  perceptive  understanding  in 
man  would  have  destroyed  the  whole  fabric  of  the  Kritir 
kismus  as   rationalistic  subjectivism.^    Yet  the  essential 

1  '•  Der  Verstand  vermag  nichts  anzuschauen  und  die  Sinne  nichts  zu 
denken."  (Kritik  der  reinen  Vernunft,  Werke,  III.  82.)  —  '*Nun  ist  alle 
uns  mogliche  Anschauung  sinnlich."  {Ibid.  III.  124.)—"  .  .  .  sinn- 
liche  Anschauung,  die  einzige,  die  wir  haben  .  .  ."  {Ibid.  III.  214, 
note.)—  **  Verstehen  wir  aber  darunter  [unter  Noumenon]  ein  Object  einer 
nichtsinnlicfien  Anschauung,  so  nehmen  wir  eine  besondere  Anschauungsart 
an,  naralich  die  intellectuelle,  die  aber  nicht  die  unsrige  ist,  von  welcher  wir 
auch  die  Mbglichkeit  nicht  einsehen  konnen,  und  das  ware  das  Noumenon 
inposUiver  Bedeutung."  {Ibid.  III.  219.)  —  "Da  nun  eine  solche,  nam- 
lich  die  intellectuelle  Anschauung,  schlechterdings  ausser  unserem  Erkennt- 
nissvermogen  liegt,"  u.  s.  w.  {Ibid.  III.  220.)—  "  Alle  unsere  Anschauung 
geschieht  aber  nur  vermittelat  der  Sinne  ;  der  Verstand  schaut  nichts  an, 
sondern  reflectirt  nur."  (Prolegomena,  u.  s.  w.,  Werke,  IV.  37.)— "Die 
Summe  hievon  ist  diese :  die  Sache  der  Sinne  ist,  anzuschauen  ;  die  des 
Verstandes,  zu  denken."    {Ibid.   IV.  53.)  —  "    .  .  .  indem  unser  Ver- 


THE  SYLLOGISM  IN  GENERAL 


51 


function  of  the  understanding  must  be  to  understand ;  and 
what  is  that,  except  (1)  to  perceive  real  particular  relations, 

stand  kein  Vermogen  der  Anschauung,  sondern  bios  der  Verkniipfung 
gegebener  Anschauungen  in  einer  Erfahrung  ist  .  .  ."  {Ibid.  IV.  65.)  — 
"Man  kann  von  der  Sinnlichkeit  doch  nicht  behaupten,  dass  sie  die 
einzige  mogliche  Art  der  Anschauung  sei."  (Werke,  III.  221.)  Contrast 
these  dogmatic  and  rather  nervous  denials  by  Kant  of  a  perceptive  under- 
standing in  man  which  may  yet  exist  in  higher  intelligences,  with  Locke's 
earlier  and  un  warped  recognition  of  perception  as  the  very  essence  of  all 
knowledge  :  "  Knowledge,  then,  seems  to  me  to  be  nothing  but  the  percep- 
tion of  the  connexion  and  agreement,  or  disagreement  and  repugnancy,  of 
any  of  our  ideas.  In  this  alone  it  consists.  Where  this  perception  is, 
there  is  knowledge ;  and  where  it  is  not,  there,  though  we  may  fancy, 
guess,  or  believe,  yet  we  always  come  short  of  knowledge.  .  .  .  There 
could  be  no  room  for  any  positive  knowledge  at  all,  if  we  could  not  perceive 
any  relation  between  our  ideas,  and  find  out  the  agreement  or  disagreement 
they  have  one  with  another,  in  several  ways  the  mind  takes  of  comparing 
them.  .  .  .  Sometimes  the  mind  perceives  the  agreement  or  disagreement 
of  two  ideas  immediately  by  themselves,  without  the  intervention  of  any 
other ;  and  this  I  think  we  may  call  intuitive  knowledge.  .  .  .  Certainty 
depends  so  wholly  on  this  intuition^  that,  in  the  next  degree  of  knowledge 
which  I  call  demonstrative,  this  intuition  is  necessary  in  all  the  connexions 
of  the  intermediate  ideas,  without  which  we  cannot  attain  knowledge  and 
certainty."  (Essay  of  Human  Understanding,  Bk.  IV.  Ch.  I.  §§2,  5: 
Ch.  II.  §  1.  Italics  ours.)  It  matters  not  at  all  whether  the  objects 
related  be  held  to  be  "things  in  themselves,"  "objects  of  experience," 
"phaenomena  alone,"  "ideas,"  or  "states  of  consciousness:"  knowledge 
itself,  as  Locke  saw,  consists  first  of  all  in  perceiving  those  relations,  and 
the  perceiving  of  them  is  the  understanding  of  them.  The  fundamental 
error  of  Kant  is  his  notion  of  the  understanding  as  "spontaneity  of 
knowledge"  or  "synthesis  a  priori"  instead  of  the  intellectual  perception 
of  relations  as  sttch,  as  an  inseparable  element  of  every  actual  cognition  or 
percept-concept.  In  what  way  the  perceptive  understanding  perceives 
relations  is  a  separate  problem  of  scientific  psychology,  physiological  or 
other ;  but  no  possible  psychology  can  wipe  out  the  fact  of  which  all 
psychology  is  the  study  —  the  fact  that  the  understanding  understands, 
that  is,  perceives  and  conceives  the  relations  of  things,  be  these  things 
what  they  may,  sensations  or  motions  or  states  of  consciousness  or  what 
not.  For  all  things  of  all  possible  kinds  are  determined  per  se  as  genera, 
species,  and  specimens,  by  the  Apriori  of  Being  ;  and  scientific  study  of 
them  presupposes  a  scientific  epistemology  which  is  grounded  in  the 
recognition  of  the  Objectivity  of  Relations  as  the  Law  of  Unit-Universals, 
and  must  dominate  all  scientific  investigations  whatsoever. 


il- 


52 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  SYLLOGISM  IN  GENERAL 


53 


b 


liii 


(2)  to  conceive  them  or  unite  them  in  universal  percept- 
concepts,  and  (3)  to  use  these  intelligently,  that  is,  under- 
standingly,  as  ends  and  means  in  the  conduct  of  life  ?  * 

Subjectivism,  then,  is  the  principle  of  "subjective  neces- 
sity'' in  the  subject  alone,  whence  results  the  principle 
that,  as  spontaneity/  (pure  synthesis  a  j^norl  or  else  mere 
custom),  the  understanding  necessarily  creates  out  of  itself 
the  whole  world  of  the  understood  (subjectivity  of  relations, 
Nature  as  "  phaenomena  alone  ")  ;  *  while  objectivism  is  the 
principle  of  "objective  necessity"  as  the  ground  of  all 
"  subjective  necessity,''  whence  results  the  principle  that  all 
necessities  of  the  understanding,  as  perceptivity^  are  deter- 
mined by  the  necessities  of  the  understood  (objectivity  of 
relations.  Nature  as  the  noumenal  Unit-Universal  of  exist- 
ence). And  the  ground  of  decision  between  subjectivism 
in  philosophy  (critical  idealism)  and  objectivism  in  science 
(critical  realism)  is  the  fact  that  all  creation  of  something 
out  of  nothing,  including  subjectivistic  creation  of  the  un- 
derstood out  of  a  spontaneous  and  confessedly  empty  under- 
standing, is  not  only  an  impossibility  in  itself,  but  also  a 
logical,  ontological,  and  epistemological  misunderstanding 
even  of  "  subjective  necessity." 

§  174.  These  indispensable  preliminaries  being  disposed 
of,  we  now  return  to  examination  of  the  syllogism.  Our 
former  example  will  serve  as  well  as  another :  — 


Antecedent. 
All  stars  are  self-luminous  bodies;' 

Procyon  is  a  star; 


Consequent. 

therefore  Procyon  is  a  self- 
luminous  body. 


1  For  a  fuller  statement  of  the  threefold  function  of  the  understanding 
as  perceptive,  or  analytical,  conceptive  or  synthetical,  and  creative  or 
teleological,  I  may  be  permitted  here  to  refer  to  Scientific  Theism 
(Boston,  1885),  pp.  134-147.  Wherever  that  statement  varies  from  the 
present  work,  as  it  does  in  a  few  minor  points,  it  should  be  regarded  as 
corrected  by  the  latter. 

2  ♦'  Der  Verstand  schopft  seine  Gesetze  (a  priori)  nicht  aus  der  Natur, 
sondern  schreibt  sie  dieser  vor."     (Prolegomena,  u.  s.  w.,  Werke,  IV.  68.) 


In  the  major  premise,  the  objective  relation  of  one  uni- 
versal to  another,  of  "  all  stars "  as  a  species  to  "  self- 
luminous  bodies  "  as  its  f/etius,  is  given  or  presented  to  the 
understanding  of  the  reader  as  that  which  is  to  be  perceived 
or  understood.  This  relation  of  species  to  genus  is  a  cos- 
mical  organic  relation,  a  "  condition  of  existence  "  of  the 
universe  as  an  organism. ^  Similarly,  in  the  minor  premise, 
the  objective  relation  of  one  particular  individual  to  its 
kind,  of  "  Procyon  "  as  a  specimen  to  "  all  stars  "  as  its 
species  (for  "  a  star  "  ^  one  star  in  all  stars),  is  given  or 
presented  to  the  reader;  and  this  organic  relation  is  an- 
other "  condition  of  existence  "  of  the  universe  as  it  is  in 
itself.  For,  without  these  objective  organic  relations  of 
genus,  species,  and  specimen,  no  organized  or  organic  uni- 
verse could  possibly  exist ;  and,  if  they  could  not  be  per- 
ceived or  understood,  the  syllogism  itself  could  not  possibly 
exist.  There  should  be  here  no  doubt  or  misunderstanding 
of  this  all-important  point,  no  confounding  or  perversion 
of  the  relation  of  the  conditioning  and  the  conditioned. 

1  "  The  broad  general  hypothesis  that  all  the  bodies  of  the  universe  are, 
so  to  siKjak,  of  a  single  species  —  that  nebulae  (including  comets),  stars  of 
all  types,  and  planets,  are  but  varying  stages  in  the  life  history  of  a  single 
mce  or  tyi>e  of  cosmic  organisms  —  is  accepted  by  the  dominant  thought 
of  our  time  as  having  the  liighest  warrant  of  scientific  probability.  .  .  . 
In  this  extended  view,  nebulae  and  luminous  stars  are  but  the  infantile 
and  adolescent  stages  of  the  life  history  of  the  cosmic  individual ;  the 
dark  star,  its  adult  stage  or  time  of  true  virility.  Or  we  may  think  of  the 
shrunken  dark  star  as  the  germ-cell,  the  pollen-grain,  of  the  cosmic  organ- 
ism. Reduced  in  size,  as  becomes  a  germ-cell,  to  a  mere  fraction  of  the 
nebular  body  from  which  it  sprang,  it  yet  retains  within  its  seemingly 
non-vital  body  all  the  potentialities  of  the  original  organism,  and  requires 
only  to  blend  [through  collision]  with  a  fellow-cell  to  bring  a  new  genera- 
tion into  being.  Thus  may  the  cosmic  race,  whose  aggregate  census  makes 
up  the  stellar  universe,  be  perpetuated  —  individual  solar  systems,  such  as 
ours,  being  born  and  growing  old  and  dying  to  live  again  in  their  descend- 
ants, while  the  universe  as  a  whole  maintains  its  unified  integrity 
throughout  all  these  internal  mutations  —  passing  on,  it  may  be,  by  in- 
finitesimal stages,  to  a  culmination  hopelessly  beyond  human  comprehen- 
sion." ( Henry  Smith  Williams,  The  Story  of  Nineteenth  Century  Science) 
1901,  pp.  84-87.) 


54 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  SYLLOGISM  IN  GENERAL 


55 


111! 


The  organic  constitution  of  the  universe  as  it  is  in  itself, 
with  its  immanent  objective  relations  of  genus,  species,  and 
specimen,  is  the  absolute  condition  of  the  possibility  of  the 
syllogism;  the  constitution  of  the  syllogism  as  such  is 
determined  by  that  of  the  objective  universe,  not  vice  versa. 
The  a  priori  law  of  the  syllogism  is  that  of  genus,  species, 
and  specimen;  and  it  is  derived  from  no  "synthesis  a 
priori  "  in  the  "  understanding  "  as  "  spontaneity  of  knowl- 
edge," but  solely  from  the  Apriori  of  Being,  as  that  abso- 
lute necessity  which  determines  the  understanding  to  be 
first  of  all  perceptivity,  and  the  syllogism  or  percept- 
concept  to  be  the  sole  form  of  its  knowledge  in  concreto. 
If  any  athletic  Kantian  aspires  to  defend  Kant's  splendidly 
audacious  thesis  that  "the  understanding  does  not  derive 
its  a  priori  laws  from  Nature,  but  dictates  them  to  her," 
the  scientific  objectivist  stands  ready  to  strike  his  flag  and 
surrender  at  discretion,  provided  his  valiant  but  perhaps 
indiscreet  opponent  can  succeed  in  "  spontaneously  "  con- 
structing a  valid  syllogism  on  any  other  principle  than  that 
of  genus,  species,  and  specimen,  derived  as  the  Apriori  of 
Being  from  Nature  alone.  This  principle  does  not  in  the 
least  depend  upon  the  understanding.  Quite  the  reverse ; 
for  it  determines  the  understanding.  Nothing  but  absolute 
or  natural  necessity  determines  the  nature  of  the  under- 
standing itself  to  be  primarily  perceptive  of  genus,  species, 
and  specimen,  and  that  of  the  syllogism  to  be  the  necessary 
form  of  all  reasoning  in  dependence  upon  their  necessary 
relations.^ 

1  "To  conclude:  this  whole  mystery  of  genera  and  species,  which 
make  such  a  noise  in  the  schools  and  are  with  justice  so  little  regarded 
out  of  them,  is  nothing  else  but  abstract  ideas,  more  or  less  comprehen- 
sive, with  names  annexed  to  them."  (Locke,  Essay  of  Human  Under- 
standing, Bk.  in.  Ch.  in.  §  9.)  This  dictum,  though  still  echoed 
virtually  in  many  quarters  to-day,  is  amusingly  pre-Darwinian.  If  genera 
and  species  are  **  nothing  else  but  abstract  ideas,"  and  not  most  significant 
facts  of  Nature,  what  becomes  of  the  great  historical  battle  over  the 
"origin  of  species"?  What  of  modem  biology  ?  What  of  the  whole  phi- 
losophy of  evolution  ?    But  the  most  amusing  aspect  of  the  case  is  the  fact 


The  two  premises,  therefore,  are  expressions  or  enuncia- 
tions, in  terms  of  Thought,  of  objective  organic  relations  in 
Being,  which  determine  objectively  a  prloriy  that  is,  by 
objective  necessity,  the  essential  form  of  every  judgment  as 
subject  and  predicate,  and  of  every  syllogism  as  antecedent 
and  consequent.  The  species  can  exist  only  in  its  genus, 
and  the  specimen  can  exist  only  in  its  species :  these  are 
universal  and  necessary  conditions  of  existence  which 
"cannot  be  otherwise,"  and  which  therefore  determine  a 
priori  the  essential  constitution  of  every  possible  judgment 
and  every  possible  syllogism  as  existent  forms  of  knowledge. 
But,  besides  these  two  expressed  relations  in  the  premises, 

that  the  process  of  forming  *'  abstract  ideas,"  as  told  by  Locke  himself,  in- 
volves **  genera  and  species,"  not  as  abstractions,  but  as  realities.    He  says, 
in  the  same  chapter :  "  Words  become  general  by  being  made  the  signs  of 
general  ideas  ;  and  ideas  become  general  by  separating  from  them  the  cir- 
cumstances of  time  and  place,  and  any  other  ideas  that  may  determine  them 
to  this  or  that  particular  existence.     By  this  way  of  abstraction  they  are 
made  caj^able  of  representing  more  individuals  than  one ;  each  of  which,  hav- 
ing in  it  a  conformity  to  that  abstract  idea,  is  (as  as  we  call  it)  of  that  sort. 
.  .  ,  And  thus  they  [children]  come  to  have  a  general  name  and  a  general 
idea  ;  wherein  they  make  nothing  new,  but  only  leave  out  of  the  complex 
idea  they  had  of  Peter  and  James,  Mary  and  Jane,  that  which  is  peculiar 
to  each,  and  retain  only  what  is  common  to  them  all."     What,  then,  is 
this  **  way  of  abstraction  "  ?    Peter  and  James,  Mary  and  Jane,  it  appears, 
possess  each  numerous  characteristics  —  a  real  genus  ;  of  these  character- 
istics, some  are  "peculiar  to  each"  — a  real  species  ;  and  others  are  "com- 
mon to  all  "  —another  real  species.     The  '*  way  of  abstraction,"  therefore, 
whatever  is  understood  by  "ideas,"  presupposes (1)  a  real  genus  of  char- 
acteristics, (2) a  real  species  of  those  "peculiar  to  each,"  and  (3)  another 
real  species  of  those    "common  to  all;"  and  the  "abstract  idea"  it- 
self is  formed  by  dividing  the  genus,  including  all  of  one  species,  and 
excluding  all  of  the  other  species.     What  stronger  proof  could  be  de- 
sired than  that  which  Locke  himself  supplies  of  the  fact  that,  instead  of 
disproving  the  reality  of  "genera  and  species,"  the  process  of  abstraction 
would  be  itself  impossible  without  them  ?     The  same  fact  is  patent  in 
every  other  process,  physical  and  psychical  alike.     Genus,  species,  and 
specimen,  with  their  immanent  real  relations,  must  remain  the  absolute 
condition  a  priori  of  every  process,  whether  in  Being  or  in  Thought ;  and 
every  attempt  to  disprove  this  truth  is  necessarily  a  bald  begging  of  the 
question,  since  all  reasoning  whatsoevir  presupposes  it. 


(I,. 


56 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  SYLLOGISM  IN  GENERAL 


57 


I 


III 


■M 


I 


'I 


there  is  another  relation  not  expressed,  equally  necessary, 
but  only  implied.  This  unexpressed  but  implied  relation  is 
that  of  the  specimen  to  its  genus  —  the  relation  necessarily 
contained  and  involved  in  the  co-existence  of  the  two  pre- 
mises as  one  antecedent,  and  equally  necessary  per  se 
whether  that  co-existence  is  perceived  or  not.  It  cannot 
hut  he  that,  if  the  species  is  in  the  genus,  and  if  the  speci- 
men is  in  the  species,  the  specimen  is  in  the  genus,  too. 
This  necessity  is  all  one  necessity ;  it  is  unconditional,  ob- 
jective, absolute  ;  it  is  the  ground  and  form  of  the  reasoning 
process  as  such,  determines  the  syllogism,  and  constitutes 
its  apodeicticity,  because  it  determines  the  reciprocal  re- 
lation of  all  thoughts  no  less  than  the  reciprocal  relation  of 
all  beings. 

Now  the  antecedent  expresses  this  one  objective  necessity 
in  part,  and  in  part  leaves  it  unexpressed ;  it  expresses  the 
relation  of  species  and  genus  in  the  major,  and  the  relation 
of  specimen  and  species  in  the  minor,  but  it  does  not  ex- 
press the  relation  of  specimen  and  genus  at  all.  Yet  this 
last  relation  is  already  contained  and  exists  objectively  in 
the  objective  co-existence  of  tlie  three  terms,  genus,  species, 
and  specimen  ;  for  where  the  terms  are,  there  is  every  pos- 
sible relation  of  the  terms,  whether  expressed,  or  unex- 
pressed, perceived  or  unperceived.  Consequently,  in  the 
antecedent,  the  inherence  of  the  specimen  in  the  genus 
("Procyon  is  a  self-luminous  body  ")  is  already  an  objective 
necessity,  but  only  as  unexpressed,  latent,  implied,  involved. 
In  the  consequent  or  conclusion,  however,  the  previously 
involved  objective  necessity  becomes  expressed  as  an  evolved 
subjective  necessity,  too ;  and  in  this  union  of  objective  ne- 
cessity with  subjective  necessity,  as  absolute  necessity,  lies 
the  apodeicticity  of  the  syllogism  as  a  proved  or  completed 
real  cognition.  For  thus  the  Syllogism  of  Being  reproduces 
itself  in  the  Syllogism  of  Thought  as  the  Syllogism  of 
Knowledge. 

§  175.  In  every  valid  syllogism,  therefore, — that  is,  in 
every  Syllogism  of  Knowledge,  —  there  is  exhibited  in  con- 


sciousness the  identity  in  difference  of  objective  necessity 
and  subjective  necessity  as  absolute  necessity :  the  Apriori 
of  Being  and  the  Apriori  of  Thought  unite  in  the  Apriori  of 
Knowledge,  and  the  syllogism  in  its  entirety  is  the  form 
of  their  actual  union.     But  the  syllogism  is  neither  a  dead 
form  nor  an  unconscious  mechanism ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is 
the  formed  act  of  the  Knowing  I,  the  definite  product  of  a 
process  which  is  identity  in  difference  of  experience  and 
reason  in  a  living  intelligence  as  I  in  the  We.     The  ante- 
cedent and  the  consequent  of  a  syllogism  are  not  simul- 
taneous.    As  the  names  indicate,  the  antecedent  precedes 
and  the  consequent  follows ;  the  syllogism  is  a  march  of 
thought,  a  movement  of  mind  from  the  involved  objective 
necessity  to  the  evolved  subjective  necessity;   this  move- 
ment, this  process,  is  conscious  formation  of  a  conception  of 
the  identity  in  difference  of  the  involved  and  the  evolved; 
and  the  law  of  the  process  is  self-mediation  grounded  on 
the  necessary  inherence  of  every  individual,  of  whatever 
order,  in  its  own  universal,  —  that  is,  grounded  on  the  law 
of  unit-universals,  the  widest  generalization  of  which  human 
intelligence  is  capable.    The  conceptive  or  discursive  under- 
standing infers  inherence  of  the  specimen  in  the  genus  from 
the  two  inherences  of  species  in  genus  and  of  specimen  in 
species,  because  species,  as  the  middle  or  mediating  term, 
must  be  always  identical  with  itself;  and  this  self-media- 
tion, which  lies  in  the  very  nature  of  inference  because  infer- 
ence itself  is  mediation  through  this  identity,  is  the  active 
movement  of  mind  as  such  from  the  involved  to  the  evolved. 
That  is,  the  existent  but  as  yet  unperceived  objective  neces- 
sity, involved  in  the  premises,  comes  into  clear  conscious- 
ness as  the  existent  and  perceived  subjective  necessity  which 
is  evolved  in  the  conclusion;  both  are  at  bottom  one  and 
the  same  absolute  necessity  of  Being.     The  convincingness 
of  the  syllogism  is  the  conscious  development  of  this  per- 
ception  from  nascency   to  clearness  in  the  discursive   or 
syllogizing  understanding,  as  it  moves  from  the  antecedent 
to  the  consequent,  from  the  involved  to  the  evolved.     It  is 


th 


58 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


II! 


:i 


u 


perfectly  true  that  the  conclusion  contains  nothing  which 
is  not  involved  in  the  premises,  but,  so  far  from  being  a 
"  begging  of  the  question,"  this  is  the  very  essence  of  all 
proof.  For  proof  never  originates  anything  new ;  it  only 
creates  a  certitude  out  of  the  uncertain  —  makes  a  judg- 
ment subjectively  necessary  as  the  "conclusion"  which 
before  was  subjectively  doubtful  as  the  "problem;"  and 
this  it  does  by  developing  an  evolved  or  felt  necessity  in 
the  conclusion  out  of  the  involved  or  unfelt  necessity  in  the 
premises.  An  understanding  which  was  indeed  "  spontane- 
ous "  could  prove  nothing,  because  it  could  not  generate  in 
the  subject  even  a  "  subjective  necessity  "  which  it  did  not 
itself  contain.  Kant*s  "subjective  necessity"  could  not 
possibly  emanate  in  any  manner  from  a  real  "  spontaneity." 
It  can  emanate  solely  from  an  understanding  which  (1)  per- 
ceives or  intuites  the  particular  objective  relation  of  a 
single  species  to  its  own  single  genus,  and  the  particular 
objective  relation  of  a  single  specimen,  or  a  single  class  of 
specimens,  to  that  single  species ;  (2)  conceives  or  infers 
the  necessary  relation  which  is  already  involved  objectively 
in  the  objective  co-existence  of  those  two  particular  rela- 
tions through  the  objective  identity  of  the  mediating  term ; 
and  (3)  syllogizes,  or  creates  a  single  syllogism  in  a  single 
percept-concept  of  three  uuit-universals,  namely,  a  genus, 
a  species,  and  a  specimen  or  class  of  specimens,  by  devel- 
oping the  involved  objective  necessity  of  this  self-media- 
tion into  the  evolved  subjective  necessity  of  the  syllogism 
itself  as  a  whole,  organic,  particular  cognition.  This  is 
the  scientific  analysis  of  the  syllogistic  process  as  proof, 
demonstration,  or  apodeictic  certitude  (dTrtJSctfts),  because 
it  rests  upon  absolute  necessity  as  the  Apriori  of  Being  — 
upon  the  law  of  genus,  species,  and  specimen,  as  the  absolute 
a  priori  condition  of  the  possibility  of  the  reasoning  process 
itself  as  an  actual  syllogism. 


CHAPTER  XIV 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  BEING 


§  176.  Reason,  therefore,  or  the  syllogizing  understand- 
ing, is  not  at  all  the  "spontaneity  of  knowledge,"  but 
acquisition  of  knowledge  in  accordance  with  law.  It  is 
orderly  movement  of  mind  from  the  involved  necessities 
of  Being  to  the  evolved  necessities  of  Thought,  and  the 
law  of  this  orderly  movement,  as  discovery  of  truth  or 
learning-process,  is  the  scientific  method  of  observation 
(perception),  hypothesis  (conception  as  rational  imagina- 
tion), and  verification  (subjection  of  rational  imagination 
to  the  test  of  renewed  perception).  This  orderly  movement 
from  the  involved  to  the  evolved  is  the  necessary  method 
of  Thought  because  it  is  the  necessary  method  of  Being : 
it  is  the  way  of  the  mind  simply  and  solely  because  it  is 
the  way  of  the  world.  There  is  and  can  be  no  subjective 
or  rational  necessity  in  the  syllogism,  the  existing  norm 
of  all  knowing,  which  is  not  grounded  in  objective  or 
absolute  necessity  in  the  unit-universal,  the  norm  of  all 
existing.  The  absolute  relations  of  genus,  species,  and 
specimen  cannot  be  deduced  from  any  concept  whatsoever, 
a  priori  or  a  posteriorly  because  they  are  the  antecedent 
conditions  of  all  intuitions,  all  concepts,  all  judgments,  all 
syllogisms,  all  exercise  of  the  sensibility  and  the  under- 
standing and  the  reason,  —  of  the  reasoning  process,  —  of 
the  mind  per  se,  whether  finite  or  infinite,  —  of  conscious- 
ness as  such ;  for  the  forms  of  consciousness,  be  they  what 
they  may,  are  determined  a  priori  by  these  very  relations, 
and  can  exist  under  no  other  condition.  The  syllogism 
formulates  but  does  not  originate  them.  Here  we  abut  on 
absolute  necessity,  on  that  which  "cannot  be  otherwise," 


Ki 


60 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


on  the  Objectivity  of  Relations,  on  the  Apriori  of  Being. 
Thought  itself,  though  sublimated  to  HegePs  Begriff  des 
Begriffs  or  absolutes  Wissen,  depends  on  these  supporting 
relations  of  thing  and  kind,  unit  and  universal,  or  genus, 
species,  and  specimen,  just  as  absolutely  as  the  flight  of 
birds  depends  on  a  supporting  atmosphere.  And  the 
ground  of  the  absolute  necessity  of  these  supporting  rela- 
tions, whatever  it  may  be,  or  whether  it  may  be  at  all,  can 
never  be  explained}  for  all  explanation  presupposes  both 
them  and  it. 

§  177.  In  the  very  constitution  of  the  syllogism,  there- 
fore, as  the  norm  of  all  thought  that  knows,  we  behold 
that  necessary  movement  of  mind  from  the  involved  to  the 
evolved  which  is  the  essence  of  the  knowing  process.  The 
antecedent  involves  the  consequent,  the  consequent  evolves 
the  antecedent;  the  entire  syllogism,  as  percept  subsumed 
under  concept  in  the  percept-concept  of  the  unit-universal, 
exhibits  the  genesis  of  knowledge  as  such.  In  truth,  the 
syllogism  is  itself  knowledge  in  the  making,  the  one  and 
only  way  of  the  mind  as  the  Knowing  I.  As  we  have 
already  said,  it  is  the  way  of  the  mind  simply  and  solely 
because  it  is  the  way  of  the  world ;  and  the  reason  is  that 
the  world  itself  is  at  bottom  mind  —  not,  as  critical  ideal- 
ism would  have  it,  the  human  mind  dictating  its  a  priori 
laws  to  a  merely  phaenomenal  Nature,  but,  as  critical 
realism  has  it,  the  Absolute  I  syllogizing  eternally  in 
noumenal  Nature  as  identity  in  difference  of  Existence, 
Thought,  and  Knowledge,  yet  in  absolute  conformity  with 
that  Apriori  of  Being  which  is  the  necessity  of  its  own 
existence  as  identity  in  difference  of  the  Energy  and  the 
Reason  of  the  Universe,  identity  in  difference  of  the  causal 
series  and  the  rational  series  in  that  "  course  of  Nature " 
which  is  the  autobiography  of  the  Absolute  I  itself. 

§  178.  Nothing,  then,  could  be  more  unphilosophical 
than  the  mechanical  evolutionism  of  the  Spencerian  school, 
unless  it  be  the  inconsequent  subjectivism  of  the  idealistic 
school  — the  only  consequent  subjectivism  being  solipsism. 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  BEING 


61 


Herbert  Spencer  (whom  no  one  should  mention  except 
honoris  causa,  in  view  of  his  splendid  devotion  for  more 
than  half  a  century  to  the  advancement  of  truth  as  he 
understood  it)  labors  to  conceive  evolution  without  involu- 
tion. So  far  as  the  method  of  thought  alone  is  concerned, 
he  comprehends  both  factors  in  the  syllogism  of  knowledge, 
and  well  states  the  case :  — 

"  The  consciousness  of  logical  necessity  is  the  consciousness  that 
a  certain  conclusion  is  implicitly  contained  [i.  e.  involved]  in 
certain  premises  explicitly  stated.  If,  contrasting  a  young  child 
and  an  adult,  we  see  that  this  consciousness  of  logical  necessity, 
absent  from  the  one,  is  present  in  the  other,  we  are  taught  that 
there  is  a  growing  up  to  the  recognition  of  certain  necessary  truths, 
merely  by  the  unfolding  of  the  inherited  intellectual  forms  and 
faculties."* 

That  is  true  vision.  But,  so  far  as  the  method  of  being 
is  concerned,  he  altogether  loses  this  insight  into  evolution 
and  involution  as  complementary  factors  of  one  indivisible 
world-process.  Here  the  civil  engineer  or  the  pure  phy- 
sicist, not  the  philosopher,  defines  his  fundamental  con- 
ceptions of  both  terms :  — 

**  Evolution  under  its  most  general  aspect  is  the  integration  of 
matter  and  concomitant  dissipation  of  motion ;  while  Dissolution 
is  the  absorption  of  motion  and  concomitant  disintegration  of 
matter.  The  last  of  these  titles  answers  its  purpose  tolerably 
well,  but  the  first  is  open  to  grave  objections.  Evolution  has  other 
meanings,  some  of  which  are  incongruous  with,  and  even  some 
directly  opposed  to,  the  meaning  here  given  to  it.  The  evolution 
of  a  gas  is  literally  an  absorption  of  motion  and  disintegration  of 
matter,  which  is  exactly  the  reverse  of  that  which  we  here  call 
Evolution.  As  ordinarily  understood,  to  evolve  is  to  unfold,  to 
open  and  expand,  to  throw  out ;  whereas,  as  understood  here,  the 
process  of  evolving,  though  it  implies  increase  of  a  concrete  aggre- 
gate, and  in  so  far  an  expansion  of  it,  implies  that  its  component 
matter  has  passed  from  a  more  diffused  to  a  more  concentrated 
state  —  has  contracted.     The  antithetical  word  Involution  would 

1  First  Principles,  6th  eJ.,  p.  155. 


62 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


more  tiiily  express  the  natare  of  the  change ;  and  would,  indeed, 
describe  better  those  secondary  characters  of  it  which  we  shall 
have  to  deal  with  presently.  We  are  obliged,  however,  notwith- 
standing the  liabilities  to  confusion  resulting  from  these  unlike  and 
even  contradictory  meanings,  to  use  Evolution  [rather  than  Invo- 
lution] as  antithetical  to  Dissolution.  The  word  is  now  so  widely 
recognized  as  signifying,  not,  indeed,  the  general  process  above 
described,  but  sundry  of  its  most  conspicuous  varieties,  and  certain 
of  its  seeondary  but  most  remarkable  accompaniments,  that  we 
cannot  now  substitute  another  word.  While,  then,  we  shall  by 
Dissolution  everywhere  mean  the  process  tacitly  implied  by  its 
ordinary  meaning  —  the  absorption  of  motion  and  disintegration 
of  matter  —  we  shall  everywhere  mean  by  Evolution  the  process 
which  is  always  an  integration  of  matter  and  dissipation  of  motion, 
but  which,  as  we  shall  now  see,  is  in  most  cases  much  more  than 
this."i 

In  no  other  passage  in  "First  Principles"  is  the  word 
•*  Involution  "  so  much  as  mentioned ;  and  it  is  mentioned 
here  solely  as  a  possible  but  undesirable  equivalent,  alter- 
native, or  "substitute,"  for  the  word  "Evolution"  in  an- 
tithesis to  "Dissolution."  So  trivial  a  fact  is  significant 
merely  as  showing  how  destitute  of  philosophical  insight 
is  Spencer's  notion  of  evolution  itself.  ^    No  man  has  done 

1  First  Principles,  p.  261.  The  "much  more  than  this"  proves  to 
contain  no  new  concepts  but  those  of  homogeneity  and  heterogeneity, 
with  reference  to  the  redistribution  both  of  matter  and  of  motion. 

2  The  only  jMissage  in  all  his  works,  we  bt^lieve,  in  whicli  Huxley  men- 
tions the  word  Involution,  is  this  sentence  in  his  Collected  Essays,  Vol.  I. 
p.  94  :  —  *'  The  phaenomenal  world,  so  far  as  it  is  material,  expresses  the 
evolution  and  involution  of  energy,  its  passage  from  the  kinetic  to  the 
potential  condition  and  back  again."  This  is  the  syllogism  of  energy, 
recognized  below  in  §  179,  9  ;  but  it  does  not  add  to  tlie  mechanical  con- 
cept of  evolution.  Huxley  remains  as  blind  as  Si)encer  to  all  involution 
of  reason  in  energy  as  teleological  end  ;  his  conception  of  evolution  remains 
as  exclusively  mechanical  as  that  of  Spencer.  Haeckel  expresses  the  com- 
mon principle  of  all  the  advocates  of  mechanical  evolutionism  better  than 
any  other  of  them  in  this  luminous  statement  of  it :  —  *'  The  great  abstract 
law  of  mechanical  causality,  of  which  our  cosmological  law  —  the  law  of 
substance  —  is  but  another  and  a  concrete  expression,  now  rules  the  entire 
universe,  as  it  does  the  mind  of  man  ;  it  is  the  steady,  immovable  pole- 


i 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  BEING 


63 


more  than  he  during  the  last  four  decades  to  give  currency 
to  the  word,  and  no  man  has  done  so  much  as  he  to  belittle 
its  meaning.  For  he  derives  his  notion  of  it  from  the 
mechanism  alone,  and  not  from  the  organism,  the  only 
possible  source  of  an  adequate  notion  of  it. 

§  179.  Let  us  look  at  the  law  of  the  organism  in  a  con- 
crete case  of  its  operation. 

1.  Acorn  evolves  oak,  then  oak  evolves  acorn;  again, 
acorn  evolves  oak,  and  oak  evolves  acorn;  and  so  on. 
This  is  the  visible  or  evolutional  side  of  the  organic 
process. 

2.  But,  at  the  same  time,  acorn  involves  oak,  that  is, 
holds  within  itself  the  inherited  oak-idea  as  the  condition 
and  origin  of  the  new  oak-form, — also,  oak  involves  acorn, 
that  is,  holds  the  inherited  acorn-idea  as  the  condition  and 
origin  of  the  new  acorn- form;  again,  acorn  involves  oak, 
and  oak  involves  acorn;  and  so  on.  This  is  the  invisible 
or  involutional  side  of  the  organic  process. 

3.  Thus  it  is  the  essential  nature  of  the  organic  process, 
considered  both  evolutionally  and  involutionally,  to  revert 
to  its  own  initial  stage  and  renew  itself  in  a  connected 
series  of  similar  generations.  This  rhythmical  succession 
of  generations  involves  in  itself  one  continuous  and  uni- 
versal life  of  the  species,  as  itself  a  higher  organism  of 
organisms.  In  each  generation  the  oak-species  alternately 
contracts  into  its  acorns  and  expands  into  its  oaks,  yet 
with  minute  changes  under  modification  by  the  environ- 
ment which  in  time  may  amount  to  a  gradual  change  or 

star,  whose  clear  light  falls  on  our  path  through  the  dark  labyrinth  of  the 
countless  separate  phaenomena."  (The  Riddle  of  the  Universe,  translated 
by  McCabe,  1901,  p.  366.)  Under  this  conception,  however,  the  "course 
of  Nature  "  is  cvolutUm  of  nothing  —  not  rational  and  purposive  formation, 
but  senseless,  purposeless,  irrational  transformation  —  in  Spencer's  own 
phnist%  ** different  aspects  of  one  transformation,  determined  by  an  ulti- 
mate necessity."  (First  Pnnciples,  p.  .'JO.^.)  If  he  had  entitled  his 
philosophy,  not  that  of  "Evolution,"  but  that  of  "Purposeless  Trans- 
fonnation,"  how  much  yjopularity  would  it  have  got  ?  One  need  not  be  a 
Diogenes  to  see  that  mankind  is  fooled  by  words. 


64 


TUE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


evolution  of  species  itself,  already  involved  in  the  evolving 
genus  and  the  evolving  world.  This  alternate  contraction 
and  expansion  constitute,  as  it  were,  the  regular  beat,  the 
systole  and  diastole,  of  a  single  heart.  The  contraction  is 
involution,  and  the  expansion  is  evolution ;  each  conditions 
the  other ;  it  requires  both  to  constitute  the  self-perpetuat- 
ing organic  process,  and  what  happens  in  the  species  hap- 
pens equally,  on  a  smaller  scale,  in  the  specimen.  The 
life  of  the  oak  in  the  genesis  of  its  own  organs  is  the  life 
of  the  oak-species  on  a  smaller  scale,  and  no  less  is  it, 
on  the  grandest  scale,  the  indwelling  and  inworking  life  of 
the  world,  as  the  identity  in  difference  of  the  Many  and 
the  One. 

4.  This  conception  of  life  is  the  exact  reverse  of  Spen- 
cer's as  the  passively  mechanical  "continuous  adjustment 
of  internal  relations  to  external  relations;  "  for  it  conceives 
life  as  the  actively  organic  adjustment  of  external  relations 
to  internal  relations.  Instead  of  being  in  the  last  analysis 
a  merely  mechanical  result  of  "incident  forces,"  life  is  the 
victorious  subjugation  of  "incident  forces"  by  imiuanent 
forces,  as  is  proved  by  the  constant  absorption,  assimila- 
tion, and  incorporation  of  food^  with  selective  excretion  of 
whatever  successfully  resists  this  digestion.  Instead  of 
being  a  merely  mechanical  product  of  the  "environment," 
life  dominates  the  environment,  and  harnesses  it  to  its 
own  chariot;  it  originates  from  itself  alone  (pmne  vioain, 
ex  vivo),  reproduces  itself  alone,  and  exhibits  itself  from 
first  to  last  as  mastery  of  the  mechanism  by  the  organism. 
What  constitutes  the  organism,  as  distinguished  from  the 
mere  mechanism  (the  mere  mechanism  can  only  be  manu- 
factured from  without,  but  the  finite  organism  is  itself  a 
mechanism  which,  seizing  its  own  material  from  without, 
makes  and  works  itself  from  within),  is  above  all  else  the 
immanent  inherited  and  constructive  idea  of  the  species, 
Claude  Bernard's  Videe  creatrice ;  which,  so  long  as  the 
specimen  lives,  dominates  the  environment,  yokes  to  its 
own  ends  all  "incident  forces,"  shows  itself  visibly  as  a 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  BEING 


65 


I'' 
1 1 


new  unit  of  the  universal  life  at  work  in  the  involution  of 
form  as  idea  and  evolution  of  form  as  fact,  and  ceases  to 
work  only  when  the  specimen  dies.  For  the  cessation  of 
this  organic  and  organific  process  in  the  specimen  is  its 
death  or  dissolution. 

5.  Involution  of  form  as  plan  or  idea  and  evolution  of 
form  as  fact:  that  is  the  double  life-process  itself.  Slowly 
evolving  the  oak,  the  acorn  evolves  trunk,  roots,  boughs, 
twigs,  leaves,  new  acorns,  as  an  actual  constitution  of 
constituent  natural  organs ;  slowly  involving  in  each  new 
acorn  the  specific  plan  of  this  constitution  as  the  bequeathed 
idea  of  the  species,  the  oak  involves  it  as  an  inherited  law 
of  future  development,  proposed  or  purposed  in  advance  of 
the  fact.  This  inherited  organic  idea  which  dominates 
the  young  specimen,  and  which,  if  the  specimen  lives, 
dominates  its  environment,  too,  is  all  in  all,  because  it 
gives  definite  and  unchanging  direction  to  all  the  speci- 
men's inherited  energy;  it  is  the  predetermined  goal  and 
the  determinant  of  that  goal,  — the  bequeathed,  inherited, 
and  involved  idea  of  a  future  fact  which  is  the  cause  of  the 
development  of  the  present  fact  into  that  future  fact,  and 
so  a  final  cause,  —  the  end  or  aim  of  the  life-process,  —  the 
proposituniy  the  result  proposed  or  posited  in  advance,  the 
purpose  of  it  as  a  process.  This  involution  of  idea  in  all 
evolution  of  form,  which  is  the  very  essence  of  the  organic 
process  as  life,  is  that  immanent  and  universal  teleology 
of  Nature  which  only  blindness  can  deny.  For,  of  course, 
in  all  growth  of  the  oak  from  the  acorn  and  the  acorn  from 
the  oak,  the  idea  in  the  oak  is  not  an  idea  of  the  oak ;  the 
seat  of  the  idea  as  consciousness  is  the  self -involving  and 
self-evolving  universe  itself,  the  identity  in  difference  of 
World-Energy  and  World-Reason  as  the  Absolute  I.  This 
inherent,  omnipresent,  and  ineradicable  purposiveness  of 
the  organic  constitution  as  such  is  that  teleology  of  Nature 
which,  because  it  is  a  fact  of  obvious  experience,  admits 
of  no  rational  denial.  But,  deny  it  who  may,  the  organic 
process  is  everywhere  and  always  both  a  mechanical  and  a 

VOL.   II.  —  6 


66 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOrHr 


teleological  one,  and  its  two  inseparable  factors  are  invo- 
lution and  evolution  —  involution  as  the  inflow  of  the  idea 
into  the  form,  and  evolution  as  the  outflow  of  the  form 
from  the  idea.  Thus  all  life  is  movement  from  the  involved 
to  the  evolved  in  form,  and  movement  of  the  involved  into 
the  evolved  in  idea;  and  the  living  being  is  this  living 
identity  in  difference  of  idea  and  form  in  fact. 

6.  The  involutional  side  of  the  organic  process,  there- 
fore, is  its  invisible  teleological  side;  while  the  evolutional 
side  of  it  is  its  visible  mechanical  side.  The  necessary 
identity  in  difference  of  involution  and  evolution  in  the 
organic  process,  outside  of  which  neither  element  alone  is  in 
the  least  intelligible,  is  the  necessary  identity  in  difference 
of  the  mechanical  and  the  teleological  —  the  impossibility, 
therefore,  of  separating  them  or  conceiving  either  with- 
out the  other,  the  impossibility  of  conceiving  evolution 
without  involution  or  the  mechanical  without  the  teleologi- 
cal. The  thing  cannot  be  done,  and  the  attempt  to  do  it 
simply  defeats  itself  by  a  manifest  misconception  of  the 
mechanism;  for  the  mechanism  just  as  much  involves 
teleology  as  the  organism  involves  causation.  What  sort 
of  a  concept  of  the  empirical  machine  is  it  which  leaves 
out  the  purpose  of  the  machine  as  a  whole,  or  the  purpose 
of  its  parts  in  their  reciprocal  relations?  Can  it  be  any- 
thing better  than  an  unreal  abstraction?  Yet,  if  the  real 
machine  of  experience  cannot  be  itself  explained  without 
teleology,  how  can  it  explain  a  "world-machine  "  in  which 
all  teleology  is  denied?  These  questions  answer  them- 
selves. Hence  the  mechanical  theory  of  evolution,  which 
aspires  to  explain  Nature  without  teleology  as  a  mere 
machine,  necessarily  begins  by  misunderstanding  the 
machine  as  mechanical  only,  and  ends  by  misunderstand- 
ing Nature  even  in  its  strictly  mechanical  aspect.  It  is  a 
blind  leader  of  the  blind.  Nothing  but  the  organism  can 
explain  a  world  which  evolves. 

7.  The  organic  process,  then,  as  the  life-process,  that 
is,  as  the  perpetual  involution  of  idea  and  perpetual  evo- 


\ 


.1  .'I 


*  ■■. 


1  i' 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  BEING 


67 


lution  of  form,  is  itself  the  cosmical  process,  the  "  Course 
of  Nature."  Either  this  is  true,  or  there  is  no  cosmical 
process  at  all,  no  cosmical  procession  of  existence  from 
form  to  form  in  accordance  with  any  genetic  or  intelligible 
law,  no  orderly  evolution  of  energy  as  form  and  orderly 
involution  of  reason  as  idea  in  a  formed  cosmos.  Nothing 
can  be  said  to  **  proceed  "  at  all,  in  the  sense  of  moving  by 
rational  law  or  intelligible  rule,  except  as  genesis,  that  is, 
formation  through  ideation  —  purposive  formation,  not  pur- 
poseless transformation.  The  exact  opposite  of  orderly 
process  is  formless  and  aimless  motion  —  disorderly  motion 
which  has  no  form  for  aim ;  while  all  orderly  process,  that 
is,  motion  which  has  form  for  aim,  is  essentially  organic, 
both  mechanical  and  teleological  at  once,  —  mechanical  as 
cause  and  effect,  teleological  as  end  and  means,  and  organic 
as  identity  in  difference  of  the  mechanical  and  the  teleo- 
logical, or  evolution  and  involution,  in  every  organism  as 
such,  and  therefore  in  the  world-organism  as  a  whole. 
This  is  the  only  thinkable  cosmical  process;  for  the  only 
alternative  is  an  absolutely  irrational  time-series,  an  unin- 
telligible succession  of  events  as  empty  of  evolution  as  of 
involution,  because  having  no  more  rational  or  genetic 
connection  than  the  mechanically  related  but  teleologically 
unrelated  succession  of  figures  in  the  kaleidoscope  (as  a 
machine,  even  the  kaleidoscope  contains  a  teleological  ele- 
ment, but  not  in  the  immediate  relation  of  figure  to  figure). 
The  "Course  of  Nature,"  on  the  contrary,  is  a  self- 
sustained  rational  and  genetic  movement  from  the  involved 
to  the  evolved,  from  the  idea  to  the  form,  from  the  universe 
as  invisible  but  abiding  unity  to  the  universe  as  visible  but 
vanishing  multiplicity;  and  the  rationality  of  it  lies  in  the 
eternal  genesis  of  form  out  of  form  (the  specimen  as  fact 
out  of  other  specimens  as  facts)  through  the  eternal  media- 
tion of  idea  (the  specific  form  as  purpose)  —  a  genetical 
syllogistic  process  which  is  mechanical  so  far  as  it  contains 
causality  and  teleological  so  far  as  it  contains  finality,  and 
which  is  organic  because  it  contains  both  laws  at  once  in 


68 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


working  harmony.  The  abiding  unity  of  the  universe  is 
the  eternity  of  this  cosmical  process  as  life-process:  the 
universe  is  alive.  This  is  the  Syllogism  of  Being,  in 
which  the  antecedent,  as  involved  cosmical  idea,  or  Spirit, 
is  eternally  equal  to  the  consequent,  as  evolved  cosmical 
form,  or  Nature.  That  is,  the  organic  life  of  the  cosmos 
as  a  whole,  differenced  as  infinite  from  all  the  finite  organ- 
isms within  it  because,  unlike  these,  it  is  self -originated 
and  self-sustained,  self-perpetuating  and  self-suflScing,  is 
the  eternal  self -equation  of  activity  in  the  transient  and 
repose  in  the  permanent  —  of  mechanical  energy  and  teleo- 
logical  reason  —  of  evolution  and  involution,  in  the  infinite 
personality  as  Eternal  Subject-Object  or  Absolute  I. 

8.  For,  in  the  last  analysis,  the  organic  or  life-process 
of  the  world,  the  cosmical  process  itself,  is  the  personal  or 
ethical  process,  of  which  aetiology  or  mechanics  is  the 
outermost,  biology  or  organ ics  the  inner,  and  teleology  or 
ethics  the  innermost  principle:  causality,  finality,  and 
ethicality  are  all  one  in  personality,  and  this  one  is  the 
identity  in  difference  of  Nature  and  Spirit  as  God.  Cause 
and  effect,  end  and  means,  actual  and  ideal,  —  these  are 
the  three  ultimate  principles  of  all  real  being  as  known, 
whatever  more  may  lie  hidden  in  the  unknown;  and  the 
rash  objection  that  these  principles  are  inconsistent,  and 
must  needs  clash  in  operation  on  a  cosmical  scale,  is  at 
once  silenced  by  the  obvious  fact  that  they  exist  simulta- 
neously and  operate  without  clashing  in  the  actual  consti- 
tution and  operation  of  every  human  being.  If  they  can 
thus  CO- work  in  harmony  in  man,  it  would  be  frivolous  to 
argue  that  they  cannot  co-work  in  harmony  in  the  cosmos 
as  a  whole.  Cause  is  universally  involved  in  effect,  end 
in  means,  ideal  in  actual  —  effect  is  evolved  out  of  cause, 
end  out  of  means,  actual  out  of  ideal :  the  cosmos  is  not  a 
dead  static  fact,  but  perpetual  movement  from  the  involved 
to  the  evolved,  and  this  movement  in  its  unity  and  univer- 
sality is  identity  in  difference  of  cause,  end,  and  ideal,  or 
energy,  purpose,  and  reason— -the  Syllogism  of  Being  — 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  BEING 


69 


the  rational  self-activity  of  that  infinite  All-Person  in 
whom  the  mechanical  process,  as  evolution  of  the  actual 
out  of  the  ideal,  and  the  ethical  process,  as  involution  of 
the  ideal  into  the  actual,  are  one  and  the  same  as  Life, 
and  in  whom  all  evolved  finite  persons  live  and  move  and 
have  their  being.  Nothing  less  than  this  can  be  the  con- 
tent of  a  "  philosophy  of  evolution "  which  is  to  be  con- 
ceptually adequate  to  all  the  known  facts  it  would  explain, 
as  cognition  of  the  identity  in  difference  of  Nature  and 
Spirit  in  God. 

9.  In  fine,  so  conceived,  the  total  world-process  presents 
itself,  not  to  blind  human  faith,  but  to  seeing  human  in- 
telligence, as  possessing  inherently  a  threefold  aspect: 
mechanical  or  kinetic,  teleological  or  vital,  and  ethical  or 
spiritual.  In  the  mechanical  aspect,  the  universal  or 
cosmical  energy  particularizes  itself  in  the  single  cause 
or  group  of  causes  as  the  involved  antecedent,  and  remains 
equal  to  itself  in  the  single  fact,  effect,  or  event,  as  the 
evolved  consequent  (syllogism  of  energy  as  potential  and 
kinetic).  In  the  teleological  aspect,  the  universal  or 
cosmical  purpose  particularizes  itself  in  the  single  precon- 
ceived end  as  the  involved  antecedent,  and  remains  equal 
to  itself  in  the  means  or  in  the  realized  end  as  the  evolved 
consequent  (syllogism  of  reason  as  idea  and  form).  In  the 
ethical  aspect,  the  universal  or  cosmical  ideal  particularizes 
itself  in  the  single  ideal  aim  as  the  involved  antecedent, 
and  remains  equal  to  itself  in  the  deed  or  act  as  the  evolved 
consequent  (syllogism  of  conduct  as  ideal  and  real).  But 
these  three  aspects  are  ail  one  in  the  Syllogism  of  Being, 
conditioned  and  determined  as  the  necessary  syllogistic 
form  of  existence  by  the  law  of  unit-universals  or  the 
Apriori  of  Being  —  that  ultimate  and  absolute  necessity 
which,  being  the  condition  of  all  explanation  through  rea- 
son, is  not  to  be  itself  explained  by  reason. 

These,  then,  are  the  essential  elements  of  the  concept  of 
the  cosmos  as  Reality :  — 

(1)   One  sole  substance  as  Energy. 


70 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


(2)  One  sole  essence  as  Reason. 

(3)  One  sole  constitution  as  identity  in  difference  of 
substance  and  essence,  or  Energy  and  Reason,  in  the 
cosmos  as  All-Person  or  Absolute  I  (§  185). 

(4)  One  sole  process  as  the  identity  in  difference  of 
involution  and  evolution:  involution  of  essence  in  sub- 
stance as  ideal  form,  or  end  intended,  and  evolution  of 
essence  in  substance  as  real  form,  or  end  achieved. 

(5)  One  sole  law  of  the  process  as  the  Syllogism  of 
Being:  eternal  self-mediating  procession  of  the  involved 
antecedent  idea  into  the  evolved  consequent  form. 

(6)  One  sole  aim  of  the  process  as  the  Good  of  the 
Universe:  eternal  involution  of  the  changeless  ideal  as 
absolute  virtue  and  absolute  beatitude,  and  eternal  evolu- 
tion of  the  changing  actual  as  finite  virtue  and  finite 
beatitude  —  eternal  pursuit  of  the  ideal. 

(7)  One  sole  ground  of  the  process  as  the  Love  of  the 
Universe:  eternal  identity  in  difference  of  Being  with 
Itself  as  the  One  and  the  Many  —  eternal  self-devotion  of 
the  One  to  the  Many  as  the  Life  of  God  in  Infinite  Love. 

One  thing  more  by  way  of  application.  When  a  human 
life  is  lived  consciously  and  voluntarily  in  accordance  with 
Nature  {secundum  Naturam),  that  is,  when  it  freely  sub- 
sumes itself  under  the  strictly  natural  law  of  spiritual 
movement  from  the  involved  ideal  of  Good  to  the  evolved 
actual  of  Character,  the  cosmical-ethical  process  in  Man 
and  the  cosmical-ethical  process  in  Nature  are  so  far  one 
and  the  same  in  essence,  differing  only  in  scale  as  a  unit 
in  its  universal.^  This  is  identity  in  difference  of  the 
finite  life  of  Man  and  the  infinite  life  of  God  —  which  is 
Religion. 

§  180.  Comparing  this  ethical  theory  of  evolution 
through  involution  with  Spencer's  mechanical  theory  of 

1  This  is  a  sufficient  answer  to  the  Romanes  lecture  of  the  noble  but 
confaseil  Huxley,  setting  up  a  factitious  antagonism  between  the  ethical 
process  in  Man  and  the  cosmical  process  in  Nature.  Such  antagonism  is 
consistent  with  the  mechanical  theory  of  evolution,  but  not  with  facts. 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  BEING 


71 


evolution  without  involution,  we  find  the  latter's  essential 
elements  determined  in  the  following  passages :  — 

**  We  come  down,  then,  finally  to  Force,  as  the  ultimate  of  ulti- 
mates.  Though  Space,  Time,  Matter,  and  Motion,  are  apparently 
all  necessary  data  of  intelligence,  yet  a  psychological  analysis 
(here  indicated  only  in  rude  outline)  shows  us  that  these  are  either 
built  up  of,  or  abstracted  from,  experiences  of  force.  Matter  and 
Motion  as  we  know  them  are  concretes  built  up  from  the  contents 
of  various  mental  relations  ;  while  Space  and  Time  are  abstracts 
of  the/orww  of  these  various  relations.  Deeper  down  than  these, 
however,  are  the  primordial  experiences  of  Force.  .  .  .  Force,  as 
we  know  it,  can  be  regarded  only  as  a  conditioned  effect  of  the 
Unconditioned  Cause  —  as  the  relative  reality  indicating  to  us  an 
Absolute  Reality  by  which  it  is  immediately  produced."  * 

"A  finished  conception  of  Evolution  thus  includes  the  redis- 
tribution of  the  retained  motion,  as  well  as  that  of  the  component 
matter.  .  .  .  The  formula  finally  stands  thus  :  —  Evolution  is  an 
integration  of  matter  and  concomitant  dissipation  of  motion ; 
during  which  the  matter  passes  from  a  relatively  indefinite,  in- 
coherent homogeneity  to  a  relatively  definite,  coherent  hetero- 
geneity; and  during  which  the  retained  motion  undergoes  a 
parallel  transformation."* 

"  In  other  words,  the  phaenomena  of  Evolution  have  to  be 
deduced  from  the  Persistence  of  Force.  As  before  said  —  *  to  this 
an  ultimate  analysis  brings  us  down,  and  on  this  a  rational  syn- 
thesis must  build  up.'  This,  being  the  ultimate  truth  which 
transcends  experience  by  underlying  it,  furnishes  a  common  basis 
on  which  the  widest  generalizations  stand;  and  hence  these  widest 
generalizations  are  to  be  unified  by  referring  them  to  this  common 
basis."  • 

"  From  this  conception  of  Evolution  and  Dissolution  as  together 
making  up  the  entire  process  through  which  all  things  pass,  and 
from  this  conception  of  Evolution  as  divided  into  simple  and  com- 
pound, we  went  on  to  consider  the  law  of  Evolution  as  exhibited 
among  all  orders  of  existences  in  geueral  and  detail.  .  .  .  Further, 

1  First  Principles,  pp.  151,  152. 

2  Ihid.  pp.  366,  367.  In  obedience  to  the  ''Note"  on  the  latter  page, 
the  word  "relatively  "  is  inserted  above  in  its  proper  place. 

«  Ibid.  p.  369. 


72 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  BEING 


73 


it  was  pointed  out  that  in  all  evolutions,  inorganic,  organic,  and 
super-organic,  this  change  in  the  arrangement  of  Matter  is  accom- 
panied by  a  parallel  change  in  the  arrangement  of  contained 
Motion.  .  .  .  While  we  think  of  Evolution  as  divided  into  astro- 
nomic, geologic,  biologic,  psychologic,  sociologic,  etc.,  it  may  seem 
to  some  extent  a  coincidence  that  the  same  law  of  metamorphosis 
holds  throughout  all  its  divisions.  But  when  we  recognize  these 
divisions  as  mere  conventional  groupings,  made  to  facilitate  the 
arrangement  and  acquisition  of  knowledge  —  when  we  remember 
that  the  different  existences  with  which  they  severally  deal  are 
component  parts  of  one  Cosmos  —  we  see  at  once  that  there  are  not 
several  kinds  of  Evolution  having  certain  traits  in  common,  but 
one  Evolution  going  on  everywhere  after  the  same  manner.  .  .  . 
It  must  be  remembered  that,  while  the  connection  between  the 
phaenomenal  order  and  the  ontological  order  is  forever  inscrutable, 
so  is  the  connection  between  the  conditioned  forms  of  being  and 
the  unconditioned  form  of  being  forever  inscrutable.  The  inter- 
pretation of  all  phaenomena  in  terms  of  Matter,  Motion,  and  Force, 
is  nothing  more  than  the  reduction  of  our  complex  symbols  of 
thought  to  the  simplest  symbols  ;  and,  when  the  equation  has  been 
brought  to  its  lowest  terms,  the  symbols  remain  symbols  still.  .  .  . 
Though  the  relation  of  subject  and  object  renders  necessary  to  us 
these  antithetical  conceptions  of  Spirit  and  Matter,  the  one  is  no 
less  than  the  other  to  be  regarded  as  but  a  sign  of  the  Unknown 
Reality  which  underlies  both."  * 

§  181.  These  citations  suflSciently  indicate  Spencer's 
conception  of  Evolution  as  the  universal  or  cosmical  pro- 
cess. It  is  essentially  and  solely  mechanical.  It  com- 
pletely suppresses  both  the  teleological  and  the  ethical 
elements  of  the  cosmical  process,  because  it  completely 
neglects  and  leaves  out  Involution,  the  necessary  correla- 
tive and  complement  of  Evolution.  We  will  tersely  restate 
his  essential  positions  in  our  own  words,  and  criticise 
them  as  tersely  as  may  be. 

1.  Space,  Time,  Matter,  Motion,  and  Force,  are  the  only 
elements  of  reality,  so  far  as  man  relatively  knows  it. 
But  Space,  Time,  Matter,  and  Motion  are  mere  derivatives 

1  First  Principles,  pp.  499-610. 


of  Force,  which  is  the  sole  ultimate  relative  reality.  Force 
itself,  however,  is  a  mere  derivative  of  the  Unconditioned 
Cause  or  Absolute  Reality. 

The  Unconditioned  Cause,  we  infer,  is  meant  to  be  in 
itself  something  other  than  Force.  But  what  can  this 
other  be  ?  To  call  it  cause  is  to  call  it  that  which  produces 
its  effect,  and  Spencer  himself  says  that  Force  is  a  "  con- 
ditioned effect,"  a  " relative  reality  "  which  is  "  immediately 
produced"  by  the  Unconditioned  Cause  as  "an  Absolute 
Reality."  He  thus  forgets  the  sagacious  warning  of 
Hume:  "I  begin  with  observing  that  the  terms  of  efficacy, 
agency,  power,  force,  energy,  necessity,  connection,  and  pro- 
ductive quality,  are  all  nearly  synonymous;  and  therefore 
it  is  an  absurdity  to  employ  any  of  them  in  defining  the 
rest."^  When  he  attributes  immediate  productivity  to  his 
Unconditioned  Cause,  he  identifies  the  latter  with  the  Force 
which  he  ostensibly  distinguishes  and  derives  from  it. 
The  "  productive  quality  '*  of  Cause  is  one  with  the  "  pro- 
ductive quality"  of  Force,  and  Spencer  thus  locates  his 
ultimate  "  Absolute  Reality "  in  nothing  but  Force  itself. 
Since,  therefore,  he  carefully  excludes  all  teleological  and 
ethical  elements  from  Evolution  as  such,  he  reduces  the 
whole  reality  of  the  evolutional  process  to  nothing  but 
Mechanical  Force,  and  erases  all  his  intended  distinction 
between  this  and  the  Unconditioned  Cause.  When  he  thus 
refers  all  reality,  whether  "relative"  or  "absolute,"  to 
pure  Mechanical  Force  as  its  ultimate  origin,  and  charac- 
terizes this  pure  Mechanical  Force  as  the  "ultimate  of 

*  Treatise  of  Human  Nature,  Philosophical  "Works,  I.  201.  It  should 
be  observed  that  "necessity"  does  not  belong  in  the  above  list,  unless 
limited  as  **  physical  necessity."  For  the  necessity  which  makes  the 
greatest  side  and  the  greatest  angle  opposite  in  the  triangle  involves 
nothing  that  can  be  resisted,  nothing  of  agency,  power,  force,  etc.  That 
which,  in  Kant's  phrase,  simply  "cannot  be  otherwise"  involves  nothing 
but  the  conditions  of  existence  or  Apriori  of  Being  ;  and  this  is  not  causa- 
tion as  energy  or  force.  So  "connection"  belongs  in  the  list  only  as 
limited  to  "causal  connection"  —  which  Hume,  however,  would  not 
admit. 


1 


74 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  BEING 


75 


ultimates,"  —  when  he  sums  up  all  in  the  declaration  that 
"  it  is  alike  our  highest  wisdom  and  our  highest  duty  to 
regard  that  through  which  all  things  exist  as  The  Un- 
knowable," * —  he  virtually  confesses  that  Mechanical 
Force  itself  is  unknowable  per  se,  takes  refuge  in  blind 
"feeling"  or  ^^ indefinite  consciousness  of  it"  as  "the 
Absolute, "  ^  concedes  unconsciously  that  evolution  without 
involution,  as  we  have  shown,  is  itself  unintelligible,  and 
reduces  the  Synthetic  Philosophy  to  an  island  of  Mechan- 
ism in  an  ocean  of  Mysticism.' 

2.  The  definitive  "  formula  "  in  which  Spencer  embodies 
his  "finished  conception  of  Evolution  "  omits  all  Involution 
—  includes  only  the  mechanical,  and  omits  the  teleologi- 
cal  and  the  ethical  which  are  inseparable  from  the  mechan- 
ical in  the  cosmical  process.  He  includes  only  (1)  Matter, 
(2)  Motion,  (3)  Processes  of  integration  and  dissipation 
in  Matter  and  Motion,  and  (4)  States  of  homogeneity  and 
heterogeneity  in  Matter  and  Motion. 

Such  a  "  finished  conception  of  Evolution  "  as  his  "  for- 
mula "  defines,  however,  omits  not  only  the  involution  of 
idea,  but  also  the  evolution  of  form.  It  explains  neither 
the  genesis  nor  the  form  of  anything  whatever.  Yet  the 
whole  meaning  of  evolution  is  concentrated  in  the  Be- 
coming of  Existence  —  that  is,  in  the  gradual  genesis  of 
its  particular  specific  forms,  as  opposed  to  their  sudden 
creation  without  genesis.  Its  capital  questions  are  — 
What  evolves?  From  what  does  it  evolve?  Into  what 
does  it  evolve?  The  one  answer  is  —  Particular  specific 
form  evolves  from  its  own  specific  form  as  idea  into 
its  own  specific  form  as  fact.  Correctly  understood,  this 
answer  covers  machine,  organism,  and  person,  whether  as 
finite  or  as  infinite.  Question  and  answer  alike  depend 
on  the  genesis  of  form  as  the  essence  of  all  evolution. 
Yet  Spencer's  formula  has  nothing  to  say  either  of  form 

1  First  Principles,  p.  97.  «  Ibid.  pp.  75,  109. 

«  IMd.  p.  96. 


or  of  its  genesis.     His  half-conception  of  evolution  is  fatal 
misconception  of  it. 

Even  his  maimed  and  fragmentary  abstraction,  however, 
although  omitting  the  most  essential  elements  of  what  it 
purports  to  define,  contains  nevertheless  a  presupposition 
which,  if  he  had  understood  its  importance,  would  have 
shown  him  that  his  "finished  conception  of  Evolution," 
so  far  from  being  "finished,"  was  scarcely  begun.  For 
"homogeneity"  and  "heterogeneity"  self-evidently  pre- 
suppose the  whole  law  of  unit-universals.  Homogeneity 
is  nothing  but  likeness  among  things  of  the  same  kind, 
and  heterogeneity  nothing  but  unlikeness  among  things  of 
different  kinds.  They  presuppose,  therefore,  knowable 
objective  relations  of  things  and  kinds,  all  the  necessary 
relations  of  genus,  species,  and  specimen,  the  whole  law 
of  unit-universals,  —  in  a  word,  the  Syllogism  of  Being, 
with  its  immanent  necessity  of  involution  and  evolution  as 
one  inseparable  process.  Strike  out  either  necessary  ele- 
ment of  this  necessary  process,  and  there  remains  neither 
homogeneity  nor  heterogeneity  —  neither  integration  nor 
dissipation  —  neither  Matter  nor  Motion  —  neither  "  fin- 
ished conception"  nor  defining  "formula"  of  Evolution, 
even  as  Spencer  vainly  tries  to  conceive  it.  For  the  Invo- 
lution he  leaves  out  lurks  unsuspected  in  the  very  Evolu- 
tion he  retains :  the  inseparability  of  the  factors  he  tries  to 
separate  is  the  self-destruction  of  the  "finished  conception  " 
he  tries  to  construct  out  of  one  factor  alone. 

3.  All  the  phaenomena  of  Evolution  must  be  deduced 
from  the  Persistence  of  Force. 

But  there  are  and  can  be  no  phaenomena  at  all  without 
homogeneity  and  heterogeneity  among  the  elements  of  the 
phaenomena  —  without  likeness  and  unlikeness  of  things 
and  kinds  —  without  necessary  and  knowable  objective 
relations  of  genus,  species,  and  specimen  —  without  the 
Syllogism  of  Being  —  without  identity  in  difference  of 
involution  and  evolution,  as  one  inseparable  process. 
Consequently,  there  are  and  can  be  no  phaenomena  of 


76 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


evolution  which  are  not  at  the  same  time  phaenomena  of 
involution  —  that  is,  phaenomena  of  the  one  inseparable 
process.  But  these,  the  only  real  phaenomena  because 
they  are  also  noumena  per  se,  cannot  be  deduced  at  all 
from  the  persistence  of  mere  Force  or  Energy  alone,  that 
is.  Cause  and  Effect  as  mere  Mechanical  Force ;  they  can 
be  deduced  (so  far  as  they  are  deducible)  solely  from  the 
persistence  of  the  cosmical  process  as  at  once  mechanical, 
teleological,  and  ethical,  that  is,  from  the  identity  in 
difference  of  Energy  and  Reason  in  the  cosmos  itself  as 
Absolute  I. 

4.  The  one  Evolution  going  on  everywhere,  the  entire 
process  through  which  all  things  pass,  is  Mechanical  Evolu- 
tion and  Mechanical  Dissolution,  deducible  exclusively 
from  pure  Mechanical  Force. 

But  such  evolution  as  this,  evolution  without  involution, 
goes  on  nowhere;  and  the  "finished  conception  "  of  it  is  an 
impossible  pseudo-concept,  proved  to  be  such  by  Spencer's 
unconscious  presupposition,  as  proved  above,  of  the  very 
involution  which  he  aims  to  exclude,  when  he  defines 
mechanical  evolution  in  terms  of  homogeneity  and  hetero- 
geneity. 

5.  The  connection  between  the  phaenomenal  order  and 
the  ontological  order  is  inscrutable,  as  is  also  that  between 
the  conditioned  forms  and  the  unconditioned  form  of  Being. 

In  other  words,  things  in  themselves  are  unknowable: 
human  knowledge  is  nothing  but  unverifiable  and  ground- 
less human  supposition.  It  is  unnecessary  to  examine 
Spencer's  very  crude  form  of  subjectivism,  after  what  has 
gone  before  in  criticism  of  profounder  forms  of  it. 

6.  The  interpretation  of  all  phaenomena  in  terms  of 
Matter,  Motion,  and  Force,  is  merely  reduction  of  complex 
concepts  to  simple  concepts;  but  all  concepts,  including 
those  of  Matter  and  Spirit,  are  mere  symbols  or  signs  of  a 
Reality  which  remains  Unknown. 

The  attempt  to  interpret  all  phaenomena  in  mechanical 
terms  is  the  attempt  to  exclude  all  but  mechanical  concepts 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  BEING 


77 


from  human  knowledge  —  in  other  words,  to  think  the 
world  as  machine,  and  nothing  but  machine.  Such  an 
attempt  is  logically  congruous  with  the  ancient  dualism 
which  Spencer  especially  abjures  —  the  theory  of  an  ex- 
ternal Artificer  making  the  world  as  a  mechanical  product, 
and  operating  it  from  without  after  the  analogy  of  all  arti- 
ficial machines.  But  it  is  not  logically  congruous  with 
monism  in  any  form.  A  world  which  makes  and  works 
itself,  without  any  external  Artificer,  can  be  a  machine 
solely  in  the  sense  of  the  organism,  the  natural  machine 
which  makes  and  works  itself  from  within,  that  is,  the 
machine  which  is  not  artificially  constructed  but  naturally 
evolves.  The  mere  machine  manifests  only  the  law  of 
cause  and  effect  in  the  motion  of  its  parts  and  its  own 
motion  as  a  whole.  But  the  organism,  the  natural  machine, 
manifests  in  its  motions  both  the  law  of  cause  and  effect 
and  the  law  of  end  and  means  at  one  and  the  same  time. 
It  manifests  in  actual  working  harmony  the  identity  in 
difference  of  the  teleological  and  the  mechanical,  of  cau- 
sality and  finality,  of  involution  and  evolution;  and  only 
from  the  organism,  not  from  the  mere  machine,  can  be 
derived  the  true  theory  of  evolution,  as  applied  to  a  world 
which  is  not  made  from  without,  but  makes  itself  from 
within.  It  is  amazing  that  Herbert  Spencer  should  not 
understand  the  necessity  of  this.  The  philosophy  of  evo- 
lution must  be  monism,  not  dualism;  and  the  philosophy 
of  monistic  evolution  must  be  derived  from  the  law  of  the 
organism,  not  that  of  the  mere  machine.  Yet  Spencer 
defeats  the  essential  aim  of  such  a  philosophy  by  his  self- 
contradictory  attempt  to  interpret  all  phaenomena  in 
mechanical  terms.  Only  purely  mechanical  phaenomena 
can  be  so  interpreted;  all  others  remain  overlooked  and 
uninterpreted. 

If  Spencer's  Unconditioned  Cause,  or  the  Absolute,  re- 
solves itself  into  pure  Mechanical  Force,  as  we  have  seen 
it  does,  and  this  into  an  Unknown  Reality,  all  the  *^  rela- 
tive reality  "  with  which  so-called  human  knowledge  deals 


78 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


becomes  a  merely  euphemistic  synonym  for  unreality.  The 
distinction  between  "  relative  reality "  (phaenomena)  and 
"  absolute  reality  "  (noumena),  just  like  that  between  the 
"relatively  true,  the  true yj>r  W5, "  and  the  "absolutely  true, 
the  true  in  itself, ^^  must  rank  no  higher  than  a  controversial 
shift,  an  adroit  sleight-of-hand,  a  political  compromise,  a 
device  by  which  a  bewildered  philosophy  which  is  afraid 
of  logic  seeks  to  escape  from  decision  between  the  only 
logical  alternatives :  namely,  the  true  and  the  untrue,  the 
real  and  the  unreal.  From  pure  Mechanical  Force  as  an 
Unknown  Reality,  no  real  knowledge  can  be  derived. 
Pure  Mechanical  Force,  divorced  from  all  teleology  and 
all  ethics,  and  reduced  to  a  law  of  mere  Mechanical  Mo- 
tion of  Matter  without  assignable  purpose,  idea,  or  ideal, 
becomes  an  absolute  surd;  and  all  the  knowledge  of 
"phaenomena  alone"  which  is  derivable  from  it  becomes 
knowledge  which  is  not  knowledge,  but  illusion,  — knowl- 
edge which  is  as  unreal  as  the  "relative  reality,"  and  so, 
in  a  very  literal  sense,  absurd.^  At  bottom,  the  question 
is  one  of  the  reality  or  unreality  of  knowledge,  of  know- 
able  truth  itself;  and  it  is  no  cause  for  surprise  tliat  tlie 
philosophy  of  mechanical  evolution,  driven  to  pure  me- 
chanical force  without  teleology  or  ethical  aim  as  the  ulti- 
mate principle  of  all  explanation  of  the  cosmos,  should 
name  itself  Agnosticism  —  the  philosophy,  not  of  Science, 
but  of  Necessary  Nescience. 

§  182.  The  word  Agnosticism,  originally  adopted  by 
Huxley  as  the  name  of  the  obfuscation  which  he  had 
avowedly  derived  from  Mansel,  Hamilton,  and  their 
teacher  Kant,  and  virtually  sanctioned  by  Spencer,  not 
only  in  deriving  his  own  obfuscation  from  the  same  au- 
thorities in  "First  Trinciples,"  but  also  in  declaring  that 
**  our  own  and  all  other  existence  is  a  mystery  absolutely 

*'"W]jcn  Phaononienalism  loses  its  hoad,  ami,  becoming  blatant,  stops 
forwar«l  as  a  theory  of  first  principles,  then  it  is  really  not  respectable. 
The  best  that  can  l)e  said  of  its  pretensions  is  that  they  are  ritliculous." 
(F.  H.  Hmdley,  Appearance  and  Reality,  1S93,  p.  120.) 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  BEING 


79 


beyond  our  comprehension,"^  has  acquired  two  distinct 
meanings  in  current  use,  one  loose  and  popular,  the  other 
strict  and  philosophical.  The  former  might  be  formu- 
lated as,  "  I  don't  know  anything  about  God,  Freedom,  or 
Immortality;"  the  other  as,  "I  know  phaenomena,  but  I 
can't  know  and  you  can't  know  anything  about  noumena." 
^lany  of  the  noblest  and  bravest  men  of  our  time  are  Ag- 
nostics in  the  former  sense,  and  simi)ly  reflect  a  confusion 
of  thought  quite  intelligible  in  the  present  confused  state 
of  philosophy  and  of  the  popular  teachings  founded  on  it. 
The  other  formula  expresses  a  definite  and  dogmatic  epis- 
temological  doctrine,  the  absolute  unknowableness  of 
noumena  or  things  as  they  are  in  themselves,  which  re- 
ceived its  scientific  form  from  Kant,  so  far  as  that  can  be 
called  scientific  which  abolishes  science  as  science  of  the 
real  and  reduces  all  knowledge  to  illusion  agreed  on.  For, 
if  things  as  they  are  cannot  be  known,  much  less  can  things 
as  they  are  not;  and  the  agreement  to  accept  knowledge  of 
phaenomena,  or  things  as  they  are  not  in  themselves,  as 
a  substitute  for  the  knowledge  of  noumena,  or  things  as 
they  are  in  themselves,  can  be  dignified  with  no  other  or 
higher  name  than  illusion  agreed  on.  The  intellectual 
self-sophistication  of  such  an  agreement  to  accept  false- 
hood for  truth  amounts  to  a  moral  degradation  of  philos- 
ophy in  its  present  state,  and  more  or  less  justifies  the 
widespread  contempt  for  it  as  "mischievous  metaphysics." 
Philosophy  can  recover  its  legitimate  influence  by  nothing 
short  of  stern  and  virile  loyalty  to  logic  —  by  ceasing  to 
pretend  that  knowledge  of  phaenomena  alone,  or  things 
as  they  are  not  in  themselves,  is  "science,"  or  that  a 
"  relative  truth  for  us  "  which  is  confessedly  not  "  absolute 
truth  in  itself"  can  be  anything  else  than  absolute  falsehood 
for  ns.  It  is  this  not  logical  and  not  valiant  and  not  sin- 
cere pretence  which  is  the  vice  of  philosophical  agnosti- 
cism, and  which  is  not  in  the  least  expunged  or  atoned  for 

1  First  Principles,  p.  96. 


80 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


^ 


by  the  splendid  personal  virtues,  and  shining  achievements 
in  the  particular  sciences,  of  the  great  men  wlio,  unable 
to  detect  its  sophistries,  have  made  agnosticism  fashion- 
able in  our  day.     The  chief  evil  of  agnosticism,  apart  from 
the  intrinsic  falsity  and  deceptiveness  of  its  epistemologi- 
cal  dogma,  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  paralyzes  human  reason 
by  driving  it  to  despair,  stops  investigation  in  the  highest 
themes  by  making  it  seem  futile,  and  quenches  the  love 
of  truth  by  making  truth  itself  seem  a  riddle  without  an 
answer  — in  other  words,  demoralizes  the  human  intellect 
itself.     It  is  no  accident  that  the  rise  and  spread  of  agnos- 
ticism, as  a  popular  belief  among  the  reading  classes,  has 
been  followed  at  the  opening  of  the  twentieth  century  by 
a  world-wide  recrudescence  of  barbarism,  militarism,  and 
commercialism,  a  world-wide  decay  of  the  democratic  ideal, 
a  world-wide  revival  of  that  imperialist  spirit  of  conquest 
and  greed  and  contempt  for  human  rights  which  was  sup- 
posed to  be  passing  away  forever.     What  else  could  be 
expected  when  the  majority  of  thinking  men,  misled  by 
false  lights,  have  learned  to  look  on  the  world  as  nothing 
but  a  machine  — to  see  in  it  nothing  but  "an  infinite  and 
eternal  Energy  from  which  all  things  proceed,"  that  is, 
nothing  but  Mechanical  Force  — to  discern  in  Nature  no 
moral  law  at  all,  and  to  discern  in  Man  no  moral  law  that 
has  a  deeper  root  in  his  own  nature  than  habit,  custom, 
statutes,  social  conventions,  business  policy,  self-interest 
in  citizens  and. in  nations  alike?    No  stream  rises  higher 
than  its  source,  and  no  man's  life  rises  higher  than  his 
idea  of  the  universe  and  his  own  place  in  it,  save  by  that 
"divine  inconsistency  "  for  which  he  can  never  rationally 
account,  and  which  in  fact  is  the  unacknowledged  but 
overpowering  influence  of  a  universe  vaster  and  truer  than 
his  idea  of  it.     This  influence  of  a  universe  truer  than  his 
idea  of  it  makes  Herbert  Spencer's  life,  which  has  been 
devoted  to  a  very  noble  ideal,  not  to  be  at  all  "  interpreted 
in  terms  of  Matter,  Motion,  and  Force,"  immeasurably 
more  instructive  than  his  system.     Nevertheless,  before 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  BEING 


81 


leaving  the  latter,  it  is  necessary  to  note  the  utmost  height 
to  which  he  has  carried  his  idea  of  the  universe  itself. 
This  high-water  mark  of  his  philosophy  is  shown,  we 
think,  in  a  well-known  passage:  — 

§  183.  **  This,  which  to  most  will  seem  an  essentially  irreligious 
position,  is  an  essentially  religious  one  —  nay,  is  the  religious  one, 
to  which,  as  already  shown,  all  others  are  but  approximations.  lu 
the  estimate  it  implies  of  the  Ultimate  Cause,  it  does  not  fall 
short  of  the  alternative  position,  but  exceeds  it.  Those  who 
espouse  this  alternative  position  assume  that  the  choice  is  between 
personahty  and  something  lower  than  personality;  whereas  the 
choice  is  rather  between  personality  and  something  that  may  be 
higher.  Is  it  not  possible  that  there  is  a  mode  of  being  as  much 
transcending  Intelligence  and  Will  as  these  transcend  mechanical 
motion?  Doubtless  we  are  totally  unable  to  imagine  any  such 
higher  mode  of  being.  But  this  is  not  a  reason  for  questioning  its 
existence ;  it  is  rather  the  reverse.  Have  we  not  seen  how  utterly 
unable  our  minds  are  to  form  even  an  approach  to  a  conception  of 
that  which  underlies  all  phaenomena?  Is  it  not  pioved  that  we 
fail  because  of  the  incompetency  of  the  Conditioned  to  grasp  the 
Unconditioned  ?  Does  it  not  follow  that  the  Ultimate  Cause  can 
not  in  any  respect  be  conceived  because  it  is  in  every  respect 
greater  than  can  be  conceived  ?  And  may  we  not  therefore  rightly 
refrain  from  assigning  to  it  any  attributes  whatever,  on  the  ground 
that  such  attributes,  derived  as  they  must  be  from  our  own 
natures,  are  not  elevations,  but  degradations?  Indeed,  it  seems 
strange  that  men  should  suppose  the  highest  worship  to  lie  in 
assimilating  the  object  of  their  worship  to  themselves.  Not  in 
asserting  a  transcendent  difference,  but  in  asserting  a  certain  like- 
ness, consists  the  element  of  their  creed  which  they  think  essential. 
...  To  think  of  the  Creative  Power  as  in  all  respects  anthropo- 
morphous is  now  considered  impious  by  men  who  yet  hold  them- 
selves bound  to  think  of  the  Creative  Power  as  in  some  respects 
anthropomorphous,  and  who  do  not  see  that  the  one  proceeding  is 
but  an  evanescent  form  of  the  other.  .  .  .  After  it  has  been 
shown  why,  by  the  very  constitution  of  our  minds,  we  are  de- 
barred from  thinking  of  the  Absolute,  it  is  still  asserted  that  we 
ought  to  think  of  the  Absolute  thus  and  thus.  In  all  ways  we  find 
thrust  on  us  the  truth  that  we  are  not  permitted  to  know,  nay,  are 
not  even  permitted  to  conceive,  that  Reality  which  is  behind  the 

VOL.   II.  —  6 


I 


82 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


veil  of  Appearance ;  and  yet  it  is  said  to  be  our  duty  to  believe 
(and  in  so  far  to  conceive)  that  this  Reality  exists  in  a  certain 
defined  manner.  Shall  we  call  this  reverence  ?  or  shall  we  call  it 
the  reverse  ?  Volumes  might  be  written  upon  the  impiety  of  the 
pious.**!  ^ 

In  this  passage  Spencer  shows  an  evident  desire  to  set 
before  mankind  a  formless  form  as  a  possible  object  of 
rational  worship.  We  say  intentionally,  a  formless  form : 
if  that  is  a  contradiction,  it  is  Spencer's  own. 

On  the  one  hand,  this  object  is  absolutely  inconceivable 
because  it  is  too  great  to  be  conceived  in  any  respect;  there 
can  be  absolutely  no  conception  of  it,  not  even  an  approach 
to  a  conception  of  it.  That  is  to  say  in  effect  that,  since 
all  form,  being  a  congeries  of  relations,  is  for  that  reason 
essentially  and  necessarily  conceivable,  the  only  possible 
object  of  rational  worship  must  be  in  itself  relationless  or 
absolute.  2  It  must  be  devoid  of  all  relations,  external  or 
internal ;  it  must  possess  no  attributes,  since  all  attributes 
involve  relations;  it  must  be  the  Absolute  itself  as  Absolute 
Ifhi'vilessness. 

On  the  other  hand,  this  object  of  rational  worship  must 
be  conceived,  that  is,  relationally  formed  in  thought,  as 
having  at  least  nine  attributes.  It  must  be  conceived, 
according  to  this  very  passage  itself:  — 

1.  As  Unconditioned :  related  to  the  conditioned  as  its 
negation  and  condition. 

2.  As  Noumenal:  related  to  phaenomena  as  "underly- 
ing "  them,  or  as  "  that  Reality  which  is  behind  the  veil  of 
Appearance." 

3.  As  Causal:  related  to  phaenomena  as  its  own  effects. 

1  First  Principles,  pp.  92-94.  Compare  with  the  closing  part  of  the 
above  :  "It  is  alike  our  highest  wisdom  and  our  highest  duty  to  regard 
that  through  which  all  things  exist  as  the  Unknowable  "  (p.  97  —  italics 
ours). 

2  *•  It  is  hnpossible  to  put  the  Absolute  in  the  same  category  with  any- 
thing  relative,  so  long  as  the  Absolute  is  defined  as  that  of  which  no  neces- 
sary relation  can  be  predicated."    {Ihid.  pp.  67,  68.) 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  BEING 


83 


4.  As  Ultimate:  related  to  proximate  causes  as  their 
opposite. 

5.  As  Transcendeiit :  related  to  the  immanent  in  general 
as  its  opposite,  and  here  to  "Intelligence  and  Will"  in 
particular,  as  that  which  stands  below  it  and  in  which  it 
is  not  immanent. 

6.  As  Different:  related  to  what  is  like  as  the  unlike, 
and  here  to  human  nature  as  that  to  which  it  is  unlike. 

7.  As  Great:  related  to  possible  objects  of  conception  as 
having  in  itself  a  magnitude  which  renders  it  "too  great  to 
be  conceived."  t. 

8.  M  Inconceivable :  related  to  man's  conceiving  power 
as  beyond  its  possible  field  of  exercise. 

9.  As  Impersonal:  related  to  the  personal,  not  as  that 
which  is  below  it,  but  as  that  which  is  above  it.  That  is 
Impersonality  transcends  Fersonality, 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  the  Absolute  must  be  in 
itself  unconditioned,  noumenal,  causal,  ultimate,  tran- 
scendent, different,  great,  inconceivable,  impersonal. 
This  complexus  of  strictly  conceptual  and  conceivable 
relations  constitutes,  if  not  a  coherent  conception,  at 
least  "an  approach  to  a  conception."  It  certainly  is 
Spencer's  own  conception  of  the  inconceivable,  and,  how- 
ever ineffectively,  conceives  the  Absolute  as  "the  uncon- 
ditioned form  of  being"  which  underlies  "the  conditioned 
forms  of  being: "  in  other  words,  as  Absolute  Form, 

Consequently,  in  accordance  with  his  combined  teachings 
on  the  subject,  the  only  possible  object  of  rational  worship, 
as  we  have  just  said,  must  be  the  Absolute  as  Formless 
Form, 

This  result,  meaningless  because  contradictory,  would 
doubtless  be  explained  by  Spencer  himself  as  merely  illus- 
trating his  own  thesis  that  we  "are  not  even  permitted  to 
conceive  that  Keality  which  is  behind  the  veil  of  Appear- 
ance." We  admit  this.  But  it  would  be  a  cogent  reason 
for  his  repudiating  the  whole  Part  First  of  his  own  "First 
Principles,"  as  a  vain  effort  to  conceive  that  "Reality,"  a 


I 


84 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


fl' 


self -stultifying  attempt  to  know  "The  Unknowable,"  and 
therefore  a  mischievous  source  of  confusion  in  multitudi- 
nous minds  of  his  own  generation.  Nevertheless,  this  Part 
First  is  the  most  important,  because  the  most  influential, 
portion  of  his  whole  Synthetic  Philosophy,  and  demands 
further  consideration  on  that  account.  Giving  in  advance 
the  final  outcome  of  his  "  finished  conception  of  Evolution  " 
as  applied  to  religious  ideas,  and  conceiving  the  Absolute 
Keality  as,  on  the  whole  and  in  the  last  analysis,  nothing 
but  Impei-sonal  Mechanical  Force,  it  illustrates  the  logical 
impossibility  of  the  effort  to  think  the  world  as  nothing 
but  a  machine  —  that  is,  the  logical  impossibility  of  think- 
ing evolution  without  involution  and  the  mechanism  with- 
out the  organism.  So  much  as  this,  we  believe,  has  been 
made  plain  enough  in  what  has  gone  before.  But,  whether 
the  Absolute  Keality  is  Impersonal  Mechanical  Force  or 
Absolute  Person  itself,  is  a  question  on  which  more  must 
be  said. 

§  184.  "Is  it  not  possible,"  Spencer  asks,  "that  there  is 
a  mode  of  being  as  much  transcending  Intelligence  and 
Will  as  these  transcend  mechanical  motion?  Doubtless 
we  are  totally  unable  to  imagine  any  such  higher  mode 
of  being.  But  this  is  not  a  reason  for  questioning  its 
existence;  it  is  rather  the  reverse."  Most  certainly  so. 
Nothing  could  be  more  admirably  spoken,  and  the  mani- 
fest truth  of  the  words  has  gone  very  far  to  persuade  the 
unwary  thinker  of  the  truth  of  the  utterly  sophistical 
differences  he  draws  from  them. 

Spencer  infers  that  the  mode  of  being  which  transcends 
intelligence  and  will  must  be  itself  devoid  of  intelligence 
and  will;  that  to  attribute  these  or  any  other  human 
attributes  to  the  Ultimate  Cause  must  be,  just  because 
they  are  human,  a  degradation,  and  not  an  elevation ;  that 
it  is  wisdom  to  assert  a  "  transcendent  difference  "  between 
that  Cause  and  all  things  human,  but  folly,  irreverence, 
and  impiety  to  assert  between  them  any  "  likeness  "  in  any 
degree ;  that  to  do  the  latter  is  to  fall  into  bottomless  gulfs 


THE   SYLLOGISM  OF  BEING 


85 


of  "  anthropomorphism ; "  that  the  choice  lies,  not  between 
personality  and  subterpersonality,  but  between  personality 
and  superpersonality  —  in  other  words,  that  the  superper- 
sonal  cannot  be  also  personal,  but  must  be  absolutely  im- 
personal. In  all  this,  how  much  logical  force  and  material 
truth  can  be  found? 

In  the  first  place,  intelligence  and  will,  as  Spencer  him- 
self admits,  certainly  transcend  mechanical  motion.  But, 
as  we  know  intelligence  and  will  in  our  own  experience, 
they  transcend  mechanical  motion  by  including,  not  ex- 
cluding it.  Person  includes,  not  excludes,  the  machine; 
the  living  man  is  a  machine  as  well  as  a  person,  moves  as 
a  machine  under  all  the  laws  of  mechanical  motion,  and 
dies  when  his  machinery  ceases  to  work  under  those  laws. 
Whether  the  person-machine  or  the  mere  machine,  such  as 
a  steam-engine,  transcends  the  other  in  dignity  and  intrin- 
sic worth,  need  not  be  here  debated;  we  will  accept  the 
common  opinion  as  well  grounded,  namely,  that  intelli- 
gence transcends  unintelligence,  and  that  will,  or  conscious 
force  directed  to  rational  ends,  transcends  unconscious 
force  —  in  a  word,  that  the  man  transcends  the  machine. 
But,  if  so,  the  man  transcends  the  machine  by  including, 
not  excluding  it;  the  personal  machine  transcends  the 
impersonal  machine,  and  not  vice  versa.  That  is,  revers- 
ing Spencer's  principle  of  estimation  of  worth,  personality 
transcends  impersonality.  If  the  choice  lies,  as  Spencer 
says  it  does,  between  personality  and  something  higher, 
not  something  lower,  then  the  higher  must  be,  not  imper- 
sonal, but  personal  and  something  more,  unimagined  though 
it  be.  In  order  to  be  higher  than  mere  personality,  then, 
the  Ultimate  Cause  must  be  personal  and  something  more; 
it  must  transcend  personality  by  including,  not  excluding 
it;  it  must  transcend  intelligence  and  conscious  will,  not 
by  dropping  dowji  to  unintelligence  and  unconscious  force, 
but  by  rising  up  to  higher  intelligence  and  vaster  con- 
sciousness, perhaps  to  modes  of  spiritual  existence  as 
much  above  human  personality  as  the  human  person  is 


86 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


>i: 


1l( 


above  the  mere  machine.     What  more  than  person  the 
Ultimate  Cause  may  be  we  know  not,  for  we  cannot  rise 
even  in  thought  above  ourselves ;  for  us,  at  least,  the  dic- 
tum of  Protagoras  holds  true  —  **  Man  is  the  measure  of  all 
things."     But  high,  infinitely  high   if  you   will,  as  the 
Ultimate  Cause  must  be  above  the  human,  it  cannot  tran- 
scend personality  without  including  it  and  being  personal, 
too.     That  is  the  law  of  Nature  as  we  know  it:  the  organ- 
ism transcends  the  machine  by  including  it;   the  i)erson 
transcends  the   organism  and  the   machine   by  including 
both;  and  the  Ultimate  Cause  can  transcend  the  person, 
the  organism,   and  the  machine  solely  by  including  all 
three.     This  law  of  ethical  worth  (for  ethical  it  is  and 
must  be),  namely,  that  the  higher  must  include  the  lower, 
is  our  only  possible  criterion  of  transcendence;   and  the 
application  of  it  here  is  the  conclusion  that,   whatever 
more  than  personal  the  Ultimate  Cause  may  be,  it  must  be 
personal  first  of  all,  intelligent  and  not  unintelligent,  or, 
instead  of  being  higher  than  personality,  it  is  necessarily 
lower.     If  Spencer  reasoned  logically  from  facts  as  they 
are,  he  could  reason   in  no  otlier  way.     His   Ultimate 
Cause,  his  apotheosis  of  blind,  unconscious,  unintelligent, 
impersonal.  Mechanical  Force,  for  all  its  absoluteness  and 
infinitude,  is  as  much  below  the  *'  Apologia  "  of  a  Socrates 
as  is  the  unconscious  roaring  of  a  f umace-blast ;  and  his 
sophistical  pretence  that  the  Ultimate  Cause  is  "elevated" 
rather  than  "degraded"  in  rational  estimation  by  being 
characterized  as  impersonal  can  impose  only  upon  the  shal- 
lowest and  least  thoughtful  of  minds. 

In  the  next  place,  the  superficial  considerations  quoted 
above  about  "anthropomorphism"  are  such  as  to  delight 
the  "groundlings"  in  philosophy,  but  to  "make  the  judi- 
cious grieve."  They  make  Spencer  himself  illustrate  his 
own  statement  in  the  fine  opening  sentence  of  First  Prin- 
ciples: "We  too  often  forget  that  not  only  is  there  a 
*  soul  of  goodness  in  things  evil,'  but  very  generally,  also, 
a  soul  of  truth  in  things  erroneous."     He  certainly  forgets 


THE  SYLLOGISM   OF  BEING 


87 


to  apply  this  principle  to  anthropomorphism,  which  he 
takes  to  be  error  with  no  soul  of  truth.  Yet,  justly  and 
rationally  interpreted,  the  essential  principle  of  anthropo- 
morphism, however  hidden  by  gross  and  uncomely  super- 
stitions, is  a  shining  and  much-needed  truth:  namely, 
that,  in  all  that  concerns  moral  dignity  or  ethical  worth, 
personality  transcends  impersonality.  This  principle,  if 
Spencer  had  only  understood  it,  would  have  rescued  him 
from  falling  a  victim  to  undiscriminating  anti-anthropo- 
morphism in  the  apotheosis  of  Force,  as  the  sole  principle 
of  his  "finished  conception  of  Evolution;"  for  it  is  this 
latter  principle  of  mere  mechanism  that  makes  all  the  real 
degradation  of  anthropomorphism  itself,  when  it  substi- 
tutes Force  for  Good,  Power  for  Love,  in  men's  notions  of 
the  Divine.  But  the  lurking  truth  in  anthropomorphism, 
that  personality  transcends  impersonality,  lies  at  the  very 
foundation  of  ethics;  for  ethical  categories  of  "good"  and 
"bad,"  and  ethical  obligation  to  realize  the  ideal  of  the 
"good"  in  all  self-conscious  acts,  apply  to  persons  and 
persons  only.  Spencer  very  clearly  recognizes  that  real 
being  without  form  is  impossible,  when  he  makes  his  ulti- 
mate contrast  lie  between  its  "  conditioned  forms  "  and  its 
"unconditioned  form;"  if,  then,  among  the  forms  we  know 
as  conditioned,  the  form  of  personality  is  the  highest,  to 
think  of  the  unconditioned  Ultimate  Cause  as  personal  is 
a  higher  conception,  however  "  symbolical "  it  may  be,  than 
to  think  of  it  as  impersonal.  To  put  it  plainly,  the  an- 
thropomorphism which,  however  crude  or  raw  its  concept 
of  the  person  may  be,  conceives  the  Ultimate  Cause  under 
the  highest  form  it  knows,  that  of  personality,  is  a  less 
degrading  superstition  than  the  anti-anthropomorphism 
which,  violating  the  ethical  scale  of  worth,  conceives  the 
Ultimate  Cause  under  the  longest  form  it  knoivs,  that  of 
impersonality.  In  the  dry  light  of  reason  and  logic,  the 
mechanical  theory  of  evolution  without  involution,  refer- 
ring all  things  at  last  to  Impersonal  Force,  is  more  super- 
stitious tlian  the  lowest  fetich-worship  which  conceives  its 


;()' 


i! 


i 


*f! 


88 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


fetich  as,  in  whatever  grotesque  or  incomprehensible  or 
mysterious  manner,  Person.  If  that  judgment  is  itself 
anthropomorphism,  so  be  it :  it  is  none  the  less  sane  and 
scientific  philosophy,  for  it  finds  the  essence  of  personality 
itself  in  the  principle  of  ethicality. 

Lastly,  although  the  closing  pages  of  Spencer's  Part 
First  on  "The  Unknowable"  express  much  that  is  ethically 
very  noble  and  does  him  the  highest  honor,  he  yet  makes 
use  earlier  of  a  humorous  satirical  illustration  which  has 
had  great  popular  influence,  yet  is  a  masterpiece  of  sophis- 
try. It  is  this :  "  If  for  a  moment  we  made  the  grotesque 
supposition  that  the  tickings  and  other  movements  of  a 
watch  constituted  a  kind  of  consciousness,  and  that  a 
watch  possessed  of  such  a  consciousness  insisted  on  regard- 
ing the  watchmaker's  actions  as  determined  like  its  own 
by  springs  and  escapements,  we  should  simply  complete  a 
parallel  of  which  religious  teachers  think  much.  And 
were  we  to  suppose  that  a  watch  not  only  formulated  the 
cause  of  its  existence  in  these  mechanical  terms,  but  held 
that  watches  were  bound  out  of  reverence  so  to  formulate 
this  cause,  and  even  vituperated,  as  atheistic  watches,  any 
that  did  not  venture  so  to  formulate  it,  we  should  merely 
illustrate  the  presumption  of  theologians  by  carrying  their 
own  argument  a  step  further."* 

Soberly  and  not  sophistically  handled,  what  does  this 
illustration  really  illustrate?  The  exact  opposite  of  what 
Spencer  very  honestly  but  very  curiously  intends.  In 
"formulating  the  cause  of  its  existence  in  mechanical 
termsy^^  and  "holding  that  watches  were  bound  out  of 
reverence  so  to  formulate  them,"  such  a  watch  would  only 
do  what  Spencer  himself  does,  and  ought  to  be  lauded  by 
him  as  a  faithful  and  intelligent  disciple  of  his  own  phi- 
losophy of  mechanical  evolution.  He  satirizes  himself 
alone. 

This  hypothetical  watch  endowed  with  consciousness 
becomes  by  the  hypothesis  itself  a  conscious  machine,  a 

*  First  Principles,  pp.  91,  95. 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OP  BEING 


89 


being  which  is  consciousness  and  machine  in  one,  and  just 
so  far  a  person.  The  watchmaker,  likewise,  is  conscious- 
ness and  machine  in  one,  a  person.  When  the  supposed 
watch,  therefore,  forgetting  the  consciousness  and  remem- 
bering only  the  mechanism  in  itself,  ignores  the  conscious- 
ness and  recognizes  only  the  "springs  and  escapements" 
or  other  mechanism  in  the  watchmaker,  as  the  cause  of 
its  own  existence,  the  watch  argues  precisely  as  Spencer 
argues,  makes  the  very  same  argument,  and  merits  his 
applause  rather  than  his  satire ;  for  both  formulate  the 
phaenomena  in  merely  mechanical  terms,  both  formulate 
the  Cause  of  the  phaenomena  in  merely  mechanical  terms, 
and  both,  suppressing  consciousness,  exalt  mechanical  force 
as  all  in  all.  But  if,  on  the  contrary,  the  watch  as  con- 
scious machine,  or  person,  should  formulate  the  watch- 
maker, the  cause  of  its  own  existence,  as  likewise  conscious 
machine,  or  person,  it  would  show  itself  a  reprehensibly 
anthropomorphic  watch,  to  be  sure,  but,  mirablle  dlctUy 
would  exactly  hit  the  truth!  For  the  true  cause  of  the 
watch  was  indeed  the  personal  watchmaker.  The  moral 
of  Spencer's  little  apologue,  quite  contrary  to  his  intention, 
would  seem  to  be  that  anthropomorphism  in  its  rudest  form 
is  a  truer  philosophy  than  his  own  incoherent  compound  of 
mechanism  and  mysticism. 

"  Theologians  "  may  not  be  very  wise  (we  fear  they  sel- 
dom are),  but  very  few  of  them  are  such  poor  reasoners  as 
Spencer  here  shows  himself  to  be.  The  failure  of  the 
Synthetic  Philosophy  was  foreordained  in  its  "finished 
conception  of  Evolution "  as  evolution  without  involution 
—  in  its  conception  of  the  World  as  only  Machine,  Force 
without  End  or  Aim. 

§  185.  For  the  world  is  not  a  mere  machine,  involving 
nothing  but  the  mechanical  law  of  cause  and  effect  in  Mo- 
tion; nor  yet  a  mere  organism,  involving  nothing  but  the 
mechanical  law  of  cause  and  effect,  and  the  organic  law  of 
end  and  means,  combined  in  Life;  but  Person  itself,  in- 
volving both  these  laws  and  the  ethical  law  of  actual  and 


90 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


li 


'II 


2'" 


ideal  in  Conduct.  All  forms  of  being  and  all  modes  of 
action  which  are  known  by  man,  whether  in  common 
experience  or  science  or  philosophy,  are  easily  resolvable 
into  these  ultimate  elements,  which  meet  in  practical 
union  and  working  harmony  in  the  constitution  of  man  as 
finite  person ;  consequently,  there  can  be  no  a  priori  reason 
why  they  should  not  meet  in  equal  union  and  harmony  in 
the  constitution  of  the  world  as  infinite  All-Person.  That 
this  identity  in  difference  of  man  and  the  world  is  essen- 
tially, in  point  of  principle,  no  philosophical  innovation, 
but  a  truth  in  some  sort  familiar  to  the  ancients,  is  evi- 
dent in  the  old  crude  doctrines  of  ho7no  mensura  and  of 
macrocosm  and  microcosm.  But  its  conclusive  grounds 
are  not  fully  brought  to  view  except  by  the  philosophy  of 
the  identity  in  difference  of  evolution  and  involution,  as 
founded  on  the  reformed  epistemology  which  this  philos- 
ophy necessitates  and  supplies  through  the  reformation  of 
the  Aristotelian  Paradox  as  tlie  law  of  unit-universals,  the 
Apriori  of  Being. 

The  Idea  of  the  Universe  which  results  from  the  philos- 
ophy of  evolution  without  involution,  as  exemplified  by 
Herbert  Spencer  and  all  other  agnostics  who  philosophi- 
cally comprehend  their  own  principle  of  the  "  relativity  of 
knowledge"  as  essentially  the  Kantian  epistemology,  is 
that  of  an  "  Ultimate  Unknown  Keality  "  as  the  "  Uncon- 
ditioned Cause,"  which  manifests  itself  solely  as  the  "per- 
sistence of  Force  "  —  mechanical,  impersonal,  alogical 
Force  —  an  infinite  and  eternal  but  Irrational  Energy  from 
which  all  things  proceed;  for,  if  it  were  Rational  Energy, 
it  would  be  personal,  which  all  agnosticism  most  strenu- 
ously denies.  Realities,  noumena,  or  things  as  they  are 
in  themselves,  are  unknowable ;  appearances,  phaenomena, 
or  things  as  they  are  not  in  themselves,  are  "relatively 
known"  as  a  "relative  reality."  But  knowledge  of  a 
"  relative  reality "  which  ex  hypothesi  is  unreal,  that  is, 
knowledge  of  things  which  are  not  so,  is  nothing  but 
ignorance,    error,    illusion   agreed   on.      In   other   words. 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  BEING 


91 


agnosticism  is  the  philosophy  of  intellectual  self-despair, 
man's  abdication  of  his  own  nature  as  "rational  animal," 
in  strictest  truth  the  philosophy  of  Absolute  Nescience:  in 
Spencer's  self-humiliating  expression  —  "  Our  own  and  all 
other  existence  is  a  mystery  absolutely  beyond  our  com- 
prehension." * 

The  Idea  of  the  Universe,  on  the  contrary,  which  results 
from  the  philosophy  of  the  identity  in  difference  of  evolu- 
tion and  involution  in  the  Syllogisms  of  Being,  Thought, 
and  Knowledge,  may  be  stated  thus :  — 

Mechanical  causality  or  the  law  of  cause  and  effect  in 
Nature,  organic  finality  or  the  law  of  end  and  means  in 
Life,  and  personal  ethicality  or  the  law  of  ideal  and  real 
in  Spirit, — the  three  eternal  and  all-pervasive  real  prin- 
ciples by  which  the  whole  known  world  exists,  —  are  at 
bottom  one  in  the  real  principle  of  omnipresent  Reason- 
Energy^  Self- Consciousness,  or  Absolute  Personality^  and 
constitute  the  unity  of  the  universe  in  the  essential  being 
and  life  of  God,  as  at  once  Nature,  Life,  and  Spirit,  or 
infinite  machine,  infinite  organism,  and  infinite  person  — 
the  All  as  Absolute  I,  known  by  the  finite  I  in  its  own  self- 
knowledge  as  /  in  the  We  in  the  Absolute  L 

So  far  as  the  truth  of  philosophies  is  to  be  estimated  by 
the  truth  of  their  rational  outcomes,  the  two  philosophies 
of  evolution,  the  one  without  and  the  other  with  involu- 
tion, may  be  judged  from  comparison  of  these  two  Ideas 
of  the  Universe  as  a  Unit.  The  one  ends  in  Nescience,  as 
experience  without  reason.  The  other  ends  in  Science,  as 
identity  in  difference  of  experience  and  reason  in  the  Syl- 
logism of  Knowledge.  And  it  is  the  latter,  not  the  former, 
which  is  philosophy  true  to  itself,  the  self-certitude  of  man 
as  a  reasonable  being,  a  Knowing  and  Self-Knowing  I. 

1  First  Principles,  p.  96. 


kl 


liii 


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CHAPTER  XV 

THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

§  186.  Comprehension  of  identity  in  difference  —  not 
separation  in  the  distinguishable,  but  distinction  in  the 
inseparable  —  is  the  key  to  comprehension  of  the  world. 
This  has  been  hitherto  assumed,  and  now  it  must  be  ex- 
plained. 

Organization  is  the  type  of  identity  in  difference.  In 
Being  it  is  the  organic  constitution ;  in  Thought  it  is  the 
organic  idea.  The  organic  constitution  is  the  idea  as  real- 
ized or  evolved  in  Being;  the  organic  idea  is  the  constitu- 
tion as  idealized  or  involved  in  Thought;  the  organism, 
therefore,  is  the  identity  in  difference  of  involution  and 
evolution,  idea  and  constitution,  reason  and  energy. 
Thought  and  Being.  As  such,  and  only  as  such,  can  the 
organism  appear,  whether  as  Kant's  "  mere  phaenomenon  " 
or  as  Hegers  "phaenomenon  in  itself."  But  since,  in 
order  to  appear,  the  phaenomenal  organism  must  exist, 
and  since,  in  order  to  exist,  it  must  be  the  identity 
in  difference  of  organic  constitution  and  organic  idea,  it 
follows  that  the  organism  cannot  be  a  phaenomenon  with- 
out being  a  noumenon  too.  That  is,  it  cannot  be  percep- 
tible without  being  ipso  facto  intelligible,  — perceptible  as 
many  related  organs  and  intelligible  as  one  self-related 
organism,  and  so  an  object  of  both  experience  and  reason, 
that  is,  of  knowledge.  It  other  words,  the  organism 
cannot  possibly  be  known  at  all  except  as  the  identity  in 
difference  of  the  One  and  the  Many  as  organism  and  organs, 
a  phaenomenon-noumenon,  a  "  thing  in  itself  "  and  "  object 
of  knowledge." 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


93 


For  instance,  the  finger  is  an  organ  of  the  hand,  the  hand 
an  organ  of  the  arm,  the  arm  an  organ  of  the  body;  the 
body  is  the  living  whole  of  all  its  own  organs,  from  the 
constituent  cell  to  the  nervous  system.     If  the  finger  is 
cut  from  the  hand  or  the  hand  from  the  arm  or  the  arm 
from  the  body,  the  organ  is  destroyed  and  the  organism 
is  mutilated ;  the  destruction  of  all  the  organs  is  the  de- 
struction of  the  organism  itself.     It  is  Nature,  not  human 
reason,  which  constitutes  the  reality  as  Jinf/er  in  haiid  in 
arm  in  body  —  that  is,  all   the   parts   in  correlation   and 
graduated  reciprocal  interdependence  as  one  organism  of 
many  organs,  identity  in  difference  of  the  one  and  the 
many  —  many  unit-universals  in  one  larger  unit-universal; 
for  the  possibility  of  human  reason  is  itself  conditioned  on 
the  prior  reality  of  the  human  organism,  and  it  is  absurd 
to  dream  that  the  conditioned  can  "  prescribe  to  Nature  " 
its   own  conditions  of  being.     If   in   my  thought  of  the 
organism  I  undertake  to  separate  the  one  and  the  many,  I 
establish  difference  without  identity,  and  thereby  destroy; 
if  I  confound  the  two  elements,  I  establish  identity  with- 
out difference,  and  again  destroy;  if  I  would  understand, 
I   must  neither  separate  nor  confound,  but  distinguish. 
This  immanent  relational  constitution  of  the  organism  in 
itself  as  one  in  many  and  many  in  one,  this  necessary 
reciprocity  between   the  organic   whole   and   the   organic 
parts,  is  in  no  sense  the  productive  work  of  the  human 
mind.     It  is  neither  my  concept,  nor  yours,  nor  ours,  but 
(since  Kant  himself  confesses,  in  the  Introduction  to  the 
Prolegomena,  that  human  reason  is  itself  an  organism)  it 
is  the  prior  condition  of  you  and  me  and  all  our  concepts. 
It  is  absolute  refutation  of  the  theory  of  the  exclusive  sub- 
jectivity of  relations,  whether  as  "pure  thought,"  "pure 
reason,"  "pure  synthesis  a  jt>nort,"  or  what  not.     It  is  that 
absolute  necessity  in  objective  relations  which  conditions 
and  predetermines  all   necessity  in   subjective  relations, 
and  necessitates  recognition  of  the  Apriori  of  Being  as  the 
origin  of  the  Apriori  of  Thought. 


94 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


95 


Man  is  organic,  therefore,  because  the  world  is  organic, 
not  vice  versa.  Identity  in  difference  of  the  One  and  the 
Many  as  the  Absolute  —  not  the  Absolute  One  here  and 
the  lielative  Many  there,  but  the  Absolute  in  the  Relative 
and  the  Relative  in  the  Absolute  everywhere  and  always 
—  is  the  essential  and  eternal  a  priori  condition  of  the 
Absolute  itself,  the  necessary  constitution  of  the  universe 
as  the  All-Organism;  and  organism  in  the  highest  form 
comprehensible  by  man  as  finite  person  (not  necessarily 
the  highest  form  in  Being  beyond  the  reach  of  his  present 
comprehension)  is  the  infinite  All-Person  —  identity  in 
difference  of  infinite  reason  and  infinite  energy  as  the 
Absolute  I.  The  way  of  separation  or  abstraction  as 
reines  Denken  is  the  farilis  descensus  Averni  of  philosophy. 
Whether  it  be  abstraction  of  experience  from  reason  as  in 
Hume's  aposteriorism,  or  of  reason  from  experience  as  in 
Kant's  apriorism,  —  abstraction  of  energy  from  reason  as 
in  Spencer's  pandynamism,  or  of  reason  from  energy  as 
in  Hegel's  panlogism,  —  any  attempted  separation  of  the 
inseparable  defeats  itself,  and  renders  every  problem  in 
philosophy  insoluble.  The  only  possible  solution  of  philo- 
sophical problems  is  the  way  of  identity  in  difference.  For 
necessary  total  inherence  of  every  unit  in  its  own  universal 
and  necessary  partial  inherence  of  every  universal  in  each 
of  its  own  units, — that  is,  identity  in  difference  of  the  unit 
and  the  universal,  — constitute  together  the  unconditioned 
condition  of  the  reciprocal  relations  of  genus,  species,  and 
specimen,  whether  in  Being  or  in  Thought;  and,  since  these 
conditions  and  relations  are  what  they  are  simply  because 
they  "cannot  be  otherwise,"  the  law  of  unit-universals  is 
the  Apriori  alike  of  Being,  of  Thought,  and  of  Knowledge. 

Turn  in  whatever  direction  we  may,  illustrations  of 
identity  in  difference  meet  us  on  every  hand.  Every 
object  of  vision  presents  it  as  inseparable  form  and  color; 
wherever  the  form  is,  there  is  the  color,  and  wherever  the 
color  is,  there  is  the  form;  extinction  of  one  would  be  ex- 
tinction of  the  other  as  a  visual  object.     Every  object  of 


touch  presents  it  as  inseparable  form  and  resistance ;  and 
every  object  of  hearing,  as  a  sound,  a  word,  a  tune,  pre- 
sents it  as  inseparable  pitch,  intensity,  and  timbre.     Iden- 
tity in  difference  is  less  than  absolute  sameness ;  but  it  is 
more  than  indissoluble  union,  which  may  be  mere  external 
juxtaposition,  while  identity  in  difference  is  the  absolute 
internal  co-extension  and  interpenetration  of  essences  as 
reciprocal  conditions  each  of  the  other.     When,  for  in- 
stance,  Kant  teaches  that  "intuitions  without  concepts 
are  blind,  and  concepts  without  intuitions  are  empty,"  he 
seems  to  declare  their  interpenetration  as  matter  and  form, 
and  doubtless  means  that;  yet  he  really  declares  only  their 
indissoluble  union  in  "  experience  "  alone,  for  he  actually 
separates  them  as  "pure  concepts"  and  "pure  intuitions" 
in  "pure  knowledge  a  priori. ^^     He  derives  intuitions  from 
the  sensibility  alone  and  concepts  from  the  understanding 
alone,    two  faculties   which   "have,    perhaps,  a  common 
though  unknown  root,"  but  which  act  in  reciprocal  inde- 
pendence of  each  other;  their  products,  therefore,  cannot 
be  more  closely  united  than  the   processes  themselves, 
which  are  separated  in  all  "pure  knowledge  a  priori." 
But   identity  in  difference  of  substance,  as   energy,  and 
essence,  as  reason,  in  the  constitution  of  the  cosmos,  as 
All-Person, —  identity  in  difference  of  involution  of  essence 
in  substance,  as  ideal  form  or  reason,  and  evolution  of 
essence  in  substance,  as  real  form  or  fact,  in  the  cosmical 
process  as  Syllogism  of  Being,  —  identity  in  difference  of 
experience  and  reason  in  all  process  of  human  intelligence 
as  Syllogism  of  Thought,  —  identity  in  difference  of  sensi- 
bility and  understanding  in  the  one  knowing-faculty  and 
the  one  knowing-process,  or  of  perception  and  conception 
in  the  percept-concept  of  the  unit-universal  as  real  product 
of  that  process  in  the  Syllogism  of  Knowledge,  —  such 
identity  in  difference  as  this  is  immeasurably  more  than 
mere  juxtaposition,  or  even   indissoluble  union,  for  it  is 
interpenetration  so  profound  that  suppression  of  one  ele- 
ment is   eo  ipso  absolute  suppression  of  the  other,  too. 


96 


TUE   SYLLOGISTIC   PUILOSOPIIY 


Comprehension  of  such  identity  in  difference  as  this,  not 
separation  in  the  distinguishable,  but  distinction  in  the 
inseparable,  is,  we  repeat,  the  key  to  comprehension  of 
the  world ;  for  it  is  the  key  to  the  solution  of  the  problem 
of  Greek  philosophy,  nay,  the  problem  of  all  philosophy, 
in  the  reconciliation  of  the  One  and  the  Many  as  at  once 
infinite  Machine,  infinite  Organism,  and  infinite  Person,  in 
the  Absolute  1.  In  the  last  analysis,  all  identity  in  differ- 
ence is  that  of  essence  and  substance.     What  are  these? 

§  187.  Descartes  answered  this  question  by  affirming 
that  substance  is  Independent  Being  —  that  which  so 
exists  as  to  need  nothing  else  for  its  existence  (res  quae 
ita  existit  ut  nulla  alia  re  Ind'ujeat  ad  existendum).  Tliere 
are  three  substances :  one  absolutely  independent  substance 
which  is  infinite  and  uncreated  but  creative,  perfect  per- 
sonal spirit  as  causa  sui,  that  is,  God;  and  two  finite  and 
created  substances  which  are  absolutely  dependent  on  God, 
but  relatively  independent  of  each  other,  namely,  body  and 
soul.  The  nature  or  essence  of  independent  substance  is 
to  be  conceivable  through  itself  alone,  that  is,  through  its 
own  independent  quality  as  two  ultimate  attributes,  (I)  of 
extension  and  (2)  of  thought.  The  nature  or  essence  of 
the  dependent  substances  is  to  be  conceivable  through 
others  alone,  that  is,  through  their  own  dependent  quality 
as  modes,  accidents,  or  particular  forn;^  of  extension  or  of 
thought  (inodi  extensionis  or  modi  cogitationis)^  which  have 
nothing  in  common;  thinking  substance  and  extended  sub- 
stance {res  cogitans  and  res  extensa)  are  both  conceptually 
distinct  and  ontologically  separable.  This  is  the  dualism 
of  mind  and  matter,  which,  however,  proves  to  be  an  awk- 
ward compromise  between  trinism  and  monism;  for  it 
gives  a  primary  dualism  of  God  and  the  World,  and  a 
secondary  dualism  in  the  World  itself  as  Body  and  Soul. 
These  two  dualisms,  as  really  a  trinism  if  taken  together, 
hopelessly  confuse  the  relations  of  God,  Body,  and  Soul, 
as  soon  became  manifest  in  the  universal  occasionalism  of 
Geulincx  and  the   universal  pre-established   harmony  of 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


97 


Leibnitz.  That  is,  Descartes  separated  God,  as  immaterial 
spirit,  from  the  World,  as  mere  material  mechanism;  be- 
tween which  two  disparate  substances  the  possibility  of 
interaction  was  just  as  incomprehensible  as  between  body 
and  soul  in  the  World  itself.  The  primary  dualism  ought 
to  exclude  all  Soul  from  the  World;  within  an  exclusively 
mechanical  World,  however,  in  which  there  can  be  no  logi- 
cal place  for  soul  at  all,  he  conceded  the  actual  interaction 
of  body  and  soul  in  human  beings,  as  a  fact  not  to  be  denied, 
but  also  not  to  be  explained.  The  conception  of  substance 
which  involved  such  perplexities  as  these  evidently  needed 

to  be  recast. 

§  188.    Spinoza  greatly  modified  the  answer  of  Descartes. 
Substance  remained  Independent  Being  —  that  which  ex- 
ists in  itself  and  is  conceived  through  itself  (id  quod  in 
86   est   et  per  se   concipitur).     But   there   were   not   with 
Spinoza,  as  with  Descartes,  three  substances,  God,  body, 
and  soul,  but  only  one  substance,  God  alone  (Deus  sive  sub- 
stantia).    Descartes's  two  finite  and  dependent  substances 
became  Spinoza's  two  infinite  and  independent  attributes 
of  the  one  independent  substance  as  extension  and  thought, 
each  conceived  without  the  other,  each  independent  of  the 
other,  and  each  both  distinct  and  separate  from  the  other 
in  its  own  kind;  particular  bodies  and  souls  were  no  longer 
substances  at  all,  but  merely  modes  of  these  two  attributes 
of  the  one  substance.     The  whole  problem  of  interaction 
between  two  disparate   substances   thus   disappeared,    of 
course,  but  at  no  small  cost  of  philosophical  comprehen- 
siveness.    For,  while  Descartes  completely  separated  God 
as  personal  spirit  from  the  world  as  mere  machine,  Spinoza 
overcame  the  separation  and  reunited  the  two  by  sacrificing 
the  spirit  to  the  machine.     He  discarded  the  spirituality 
and  the  personality  altogether  and  virtually  identified  God 
with  simple  mechanical  causation,  operating  with  equal 
universality  and  rigor  in  the  two  spheres  of  extension  and 
thought,   and  without  the  least  tincture  of  teleology  in 
either.     This  violated  the  essential  difference  of  extension 

VOL.  II.  —  7 


98 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


99 


and  thought,  which  were  thus  merged  in  one  class  as  effects, 
God  became  simply  the  identity  in  difference  of  natura 
naturans,  as  the  one  immanent  and  absolute  Free  Cause, 
and  natura  naturata,  including  both  extension  and  thought 
as  two  parallel  but  independent  Causal  Series  (ordo  et  con- 
nexio  idearum  idem  est  ac  ordo  et  connexio  reriim)»  In 
both,  God  was  one  and  the  same  Free  Necessity  (libera 
necessitas)f  because  all  things  in  each  series  follow  in  pure 
logical  sequence  and  absolute  purposelessness  from  the 
inner  mechanical  necessity  of  the  divine  nature  alone.  In 
exact  phrase,  the  one  divine  substance  is  Independent 
Being,  and  the  one  divine  essence  is  Purposeless  Power  or 
Mechanical  Force  (Dei potentia  est  ipsa  ipsiits  essentia). 

No  better  formula  could  be  devised  for  Evolution  with- 
out Involution.  Spinoza's  Causa  Sui  is  Spencer's  Uncon- 
ditioned Cause;  Spinoza  knows  only  natura  naturans  as 
Cause,  and  natura  naturata  as  Effect  —  Spencer  knows  the 
Absolute  only  as  the  "Unconditioned  Cause,"  and  the 
Persistence  of  Force  as  "conditioned  Effect."  To  both 
thinkers  there  is  a  reserved  field  for  mysticism  —  to 
Spinoza,  the  innumerable  "  infinite  attributes  "  other  than 
" extension  and  thought,"  —  to  Spencer,  the  "idefinite  con- 
sciousness of  the  Absolute "  as  the  Impersonal  Reality 
which  is  "higher  than  personality;"  but,  to  both,  this 
mystical  field  is  the  Unknowable,  while  the  whole  field  of 
the  Knowable  is  that  of  all-inclusive  mechanism  without 
teleology. 

It  may  be  imagined  that  Spinoza,  at  least,  recognizes 
more  than  the  purely  mechanical,  when  he  makes  thought 
one  of  the  two  known  attributes  of  the  one  infinite  sub- 
stance; and  this  supposed  recognition  of  the  hyperme- 
chanical  has  deceived  many  as  to  the  strictly  mechanical 
character  of  his  system.  For  in  this  system  the  purely 
mechanical  law  of  cause  and  effect  is  conceived  to  govern 
absolutely  the  Divine  Thought,  no  less  than  the  Divine 
Extension;  whence  it  follows  that  thought  itself  ceases  to 
be  thought  and  becomes,  at  the  very  utmost,  merely  self- 


i 


conscious  mechanism.  But  self-conscious  mechanism  is 
a  self-contradiction,  as  evident  as  Spencer's  confessedly 
"  grotesque  supposition "  that  *'  the  tickings  and  other 
movements  of  a  watch  constituted  a  kind  of  conscious- 
ness." The  reason  is  that  the  necessary  condition  of  all 
real  thought  is  free  purpose,  (1)  the  purpose  to  know  from 

the  desire  to  know  (8ta  yap  to  Bav^aiuv  ol  avOpoiiroL  KoX  vvv  Kttt 
TO  TrputTov  i^p$avTo  <^tA.oo-o<^€ti/),  or  (2)  the  purpose  to  know 
from  the  desire  or  need  to  act:  thought  without  this  free 
purposive  self-activity,  thought  directed  to  no  end  and  for 
no  end,  is  itself  impossible,  because  the  possibility  of 
thought  is  destroyed  in  destroying  freedom  as  its  condition. 
Spinoza's  recognition  of  thought,  therefore,  as  an  attri- 
bute of  his  one  substance,  is  merely  nominal  (God  he  con- 
ceives to  be  devoid  both  of  "will  and  understanding,"  as 
mere  "  modes  of  thought ") ;  while  his  recognition  of  effi- 
cient causality  (Dei  jmtentia)  as  its  sole  essence  (ij)sa  Ijtskis 
essentia)  is  real.  Thus  the  attribute  of  extension  neces- 
sarily swallows  up  the  attribute  of  thought,  extinguishes 
it,  and  reduces  God  in  reality  to  the  one  essential  and  sole 
attribute  of  efficient  without  final  causality.  This  is  a  one- 
sided Mechanical  Monism,  that  is,  a  monism  of  mechanism 
without  teleology,  evolution  without  involution,  efficient 
causal  series  without  purposive  rational  series,  identity  in 
difference  of  substance  as  God  and  essence  as  Mechanical 
Force  alone.  Even  this  one-sided  monism  does  not  escape 
an  internal  dualism,  since  the  two  attributes,  the  nominal 
and  the  real,  are  conceived  as  not  only  distinguished  but 
also  separated  in  the  one  substance,  incapable  of  affecting 
one  the  other.  Such  a  distorted  and  imperfect  monism  of 
substance  in  ostensible  but  illusory  dualism  of  essence 
fails  to  justify  the  common  conception  of  Spinozism  as  a 
thoroughly  monistic  system.  Pure  monism,  indeed,  would 
be  un philosophic,  since  philosophy  can  think  the  One  and 
the  Many  in  organic  harmony  only  as  identity  in  difference 
of  monism  and  pluralism.  But  in  a  higher  sense  this  total 
organic  constitution,  too,  must  be   thought  as  absolutely 


100 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


one  in  the  absolute  unit-universal  of  Existence,  the  one 
and  only  universe  of  Real  Being,  the  identity  in  difference 
of  unity  and  universality  in  the  Absolute  I.  Spinoza  fails 
to  conceive  the  self-supporting  and  all-comprehensive 
totality  of  a  oneness  which  fulfils  itself  through  its  own 
internal  self-correlation  in  an  infinite  manifold ness,  just 
because  he  divides  his  one  substance  into  two  essences, 
that  is,  two  essential  attributes,  which  are  supposed  to 
have  nothing  in  common,  and  which  stand  over  against 
each  other  within  the  Divine  nature  itself  in  stark  and 
unreconciled  opposition.  For  his  Extension  is  the  Mere 
Machine,  and  his  non-purposive  or  merely  mechanical 
Thought  is  Thoughtlessness :  Extension  devours  Thought. 
Substance  and  essence  cannot  be  thus  violently  separated ; 
they  are  identical  in  difference,  distinguishable  but  indivi- 
sible ;  and  the  only  monism  of  substance  which  can  sustain 
itself  is  that  which  involves  monism  of  essence  —  one 
eternal  substance  and  one  eternal  essence  in  one  eternal 
process.  Only  as  Absolute  I  can  this  condition  be  fulfilled 
in  Ileal  Being,  and  Spinoza  excluded  the  conception  of  the 
I  from  liis  conception  of  God  by  his  exclusion  of  teleology, 
will,  and  understanding,  thereby  reducing  his  conception 
of  the  one  substance  to  that  of  the  mere  machine. 

§  189.  Leibnitz  conceived  substance  neither  under  the 
form  of  Descartes's  attempted  dualism  nor  under  that  of 
Spinoza's  attempted  monism,  but  under  the  form  of  plural- 
ism or  monadology.  Substance  remained  Independent 
Being,  but  only  as  Independent  Active  Being.  Substance 
is  not  the  all-producing  unit-universal,  but  a  mere  infinite 
multitude  of  disconnected  monads  or  units,  each  existing 
by  acting  independently  of  all  the  rest.  "  Whatever  acts 
is  a  singular  substance;  whatever  does  not  act  does  not 
exist;  substance  is  a  being  capable  of  action."  Substance, 
then,  is  independent  individual  being,  and  its  essence  is 
independent  individual  activity;  and,  except  in  their  inex- 
plicable likeness  in  substance  and  essence,  no  two  monads 
are  alike  at  all.     More  than  this  does  not  concern  us  here, 


THE   SYLLOGISM  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


101 


since  the  doctrine  of  monads  bristles  with  difficulties,  to 
consider  which  would  take  us  too  far  afield.     However, 
the  common  essence  is  further  defined.     The  monad,  as  an 
independent  unit  of  substance  (there  is  no  universal  of 
substance  other  than  the  arithmetical  sum  of  the  units  as 
an   infinite  multitude),  is  not  a  material,  solid,  inactive 
unit,  an  atom  moved  only  from  without,  but  an  immaterial 
unit  of  self-active   force    {vis  activa),  moved   only   from 
within  and   incapable  of  influence  by  its  fellows;   it  is 
incorporeal,  indivisible,  immortal,  punctual  or  nouspatial, 
capable  only  of  self-development  from  within,  representa- 
tive of  the  universe  it  mirrors  by  reproducing  it  internally, 
and  so  forth.     Its  substance  is  its  being  as  uniqueness  or 
absolute  individuality,  and  its  essence  is  its  form  as  abso- 
lute self-activity;   while  yet,  as  dependent  on  God,  it  is 
also  passive  —  a  relation  which,  as  in  the  case  of  Descartes, 
throws  the  whole  doctrine  into  confusion  again.     For  God 
is  only  the  supreme  monad,  the  motias  monadiim^  between 
whom  and  the  other  monads  there  ought,  by  the  theory,  to 
be  no  interaction  whatever.     This  is  the  internal  contra- 
diction of  the  monadology  which   seems  least  of  all  to 
admit  of  reconciliation,  for  it  seems  to  negative  the  very 
essence  of  substance  as  independent  self-activity  of  the 
individual  monad.     The  conception  of  substance  as  a  plu- 
ralism of  monads  appears  thus  to  destroy  itself:  substance 
as  independent  individual  being,  and  its  essence  as  action 
which  is  at  once  dependent  and  independent,  are  certainly 
irreconcilable  with  each  other. 

§  190.  The  dualism  of  Descartes,  the  monism  of  Spinoza, 
and  the  pluralism  of  Leibnitz  were  all  held  as  ontological 
theories  of  things  as  they  are  in  themselves.  With  all 
three,  substance  was  Independent  Being,  to  ov  rj  6v.  But 
Descartes's  principle  of  individual  self-certainty  as  the 
primal  and  fundamental  fact  of  philosophy  contained  in 
itself  the  seeds  of  modern  subjectivism  in  forms  of  ex- 
haustless  variety  and  of  all  degrees  of  inconsistency;  for 
the  only  form  of  subjectivism  which  is  logically  consistent 


102 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOrHY 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OP  KNOWLEDGE 


103 


with  itself  is  pure  solipsism,  and  this  does  not  occur. 
Descartes,  who  thought  he  had  avoided  solipsism  through 
the  idea  of  God  as  innate  in  the  Ego,  merely  gave  a  scien- 
tific formula  to  the  spirit  of  subjectivism  in  his  famous 
eogitoy  ergo  sum;  he  thereby  doubtless  strengthened  that 
spirit,  but  he  did  not  originate  it.  Objectivism  in  science, 
as  purely  physical  investigation  of  Nature,  had  maintained 
itself  by  the  verifiable  character  of  its  results  j  but  these 
results  were  too  closely  confined  to  physics  to  permit  any 
larger  generalization  than  the  conclusion  of  Descartes  him- 
self as  a  physicist,  not  as  a  philosopher,  that  the  world  is 
a  machine :  a  generalization  which  is  an  indubitable  truth, 
yet  which  is  turned  into  an  untruth  when  it  is  made  to 
mean  that  the  world  is  nothing  but  a  machine.  For,  in- 
stead of  being  a  final  result,  an  end  of  all  investigation 
and  all  thinking,  it  is  merely  the  definite  first  step  or 
beginning  of  larger  investigation  and  higher  thought:  the 
question  remains,  ichat  is  a  machine  ?  Put  that  question 
precisely  and  press  thought  to  an  answer  —  analyze  the 
machine  of  experience,  and  discover  that  it  is  and  can  be 
nothing  but  an  artificial,  separable,  and  temporary  organ 
of  the  organism  —  demand  further  to  know  how  such  a 
concept  of  human  experience  can  be  applied  at  all  to  the 
world  as  a  whole,  and  discover  the  necessary  identity  in 
difference  of  the  infinite  machine  and  the  infinite  organism 
as  one  infinite  universe  —  insist  on  knowing  how  the  uni- 
verse as  an  infinite  organism  could  possibly  be  an  infinite 
system  of  immanent  ends  and  means  without  being  at  the 
same  time  an  infinite  person :  press  objectivism  in  science, 
we  say,  to  these  higher  and  necessary  generalizations,  and 
the  spirit  of  subjectivism  in  philosophy  would  vanish  like 
the  fog  before  the  coming  day.  (See  Appendix,  Funda- 
mental Analyses.) 

But  the  day  had  not  come,  and  the  fog  of  subjectivism 
spread  everywhere,  until  Kant  arrived  at  last  to  give  to  it, 
in  his  Erkenntnisstheorie^  the  formidable  and  gigantic  shape 
of  a  Spectre  of  the  Blocksberg.     Intimidated  by  this  phan- 


II 


torn,  the  type  of  speculative  thought  which  sincerely  be- 
lieves  itself  to  be  "modern   philosophy,"  but   which   in 
truth  is  waiting  to  be  modernized  by  scientific  objectivism, 
just  as  chemistry  has  been  modernized  by  the  atomic  theory 
and  biology  by  the  derivation  theory  within  the  last  half- 
century,  has  not  even  yet  proved  able  to  resist  the  phan- 
tom's paralyzing  influence.     For  under  the  much-abused 
name  of  the  "  relativity  of  knowledge  "  it  still  upholds  the 
Kantian  Erkenntnisstheorie^  which  we  have  shown  above 
(§§  172,  173)  to  rest  ultimately  on  the  proposition  that 
necessity  =  non-necessity.     Such  a  theory  of   knowledge, 
teaching  the  absolute  subjectivity  of  all  relations  as  such, 
and  denying  the  objectivity  of  any  relations  in  real  exist- 
ence because  all  relation  as  such  is  nothing  but  "synthesis 
a  priori  "  by  the  Subject,  reduces  existence  itself  to  a  surd, 
and  permits  no  higher  concept  of  substance  than  that  of 
Relative  or  Dependent  Being:  that  is,  Being  which  has  no 
reality  whatever  except  as  the  pure  product,  idea,  or  con- 
ceptual work  of  the  human  Subject,  and  which,  therefore, 
absolutely  depends   on   that   Subject.     When,  in   perfect 
good  faith,  Kant  caricatured  as  "  dogmatism  "  the  claim  to 
know  substance  as  Independent  Being,  or  things  as  tliey 
are  in  themselves  (Dinge  an  skh)^  he  forgot  that  he  exposed 
himself  thereby  to  the  crushing  but  inevitable  retort  that 
the  claim  to  know  substance  as  Dependent  Being,  or  things 
as  they  are  not  in  themselves  {Gegenstande,  nur  Erschel- 
nungen)y  is  on  the  very  face  of  it  self-convicted  "humbug" 
as  nescience.     For  who   is   so  blind  as   not  to   see  that 
pretended  knowledge  of  "what  is  not  so"  is  nothing  but 
ignorance?     So  long  as  noumena  remain,  by  Kant's  own 
definition,  things  as  they  are  in  themselves,  and  phaenom- 
ena  things   as  tliey  are  not   in  themselves,  the  pretence 
that  ive  k7iow  "  phaenomena  alone  "  must  remain,  no  matter 
how  sincerely  and  innocently  the  pretence  is  made,  what 
Sokrates  satirically  characterized  as  "the  conceit  of  knowl- 
edge without  the  reality."     If  we  cannot  know  substance 
as  Independent  Being,  as  Reality,  we  can  at  least  reconcile 


104 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


ourselves  to  necessary  nescience  with  stoical  fortitude ;  but 
it  concerns  the  dignity  of  philosophy  and  the  ethics  of  the 
intellect  not  to  accept  as  "  knowledge  "  at  all  that  pseudo- 
science  of  substance  as  Dependent  Being,  or  mere  Rela- 
tivity, which  passes  current  now  with  so  many  as  "  modern 
philosophy."  The  very  first  step  towards  a  truly  modern 
philosophy  must  be  the  clear  recognition,  in  no  spirit  of 
opposition,  but  in  that  of  unflinching  scientific  accuracy, 
that  phaenomenism  in  all  its  forms  is  essential  agnoiology, 
and  noumenism  the  only  scientific  epistemology. 

§  191.  If  the  concept  of  substance  as  Independent  Being, 
then,  fails  to  sustain  itself  with  Descartes  as  dualism,  with 
Spinoza  as  monism,  with  Leibnitz  as  pluralism,  —  if  the 
concept  of  substance  as  Dependent  Being  fails  to  sustain 
itself  with  the  Kantian  subjectivism  as  "phaenomena 
alone,"  mere  appearances  without  intrinsic  reality, —  what 
conceivable  form  remains  for  it  to  take?  Briefly,  this: 
identity  in  difference  of  Independent  Being  and  Dependent 
Being  —  not  an  abstract  Absolute  without  a  Relative  ("out 
of  relation,"  as  it  is  put),  nor  yet  an  abstract  Relative 
without  an  Absolute  ("pure  relativity"),  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, concrete  identity  in  difference  of  the  Absolute,  or 
Independent  Being  as  One  (which  is  the  absolute  monism), 
and  the  Relative,  or  Dependent  Being  as  Many  (which  is 
the  absolute  pluralism),  in  the  real  form  of  the  world  as 
one  infinite  and  eternal  sole  universe.  More  particularly : 
the  real  form  of  the  world  as  the  infinite  One  is  by  no 
means  an  abstract  Eleatic  unity  op  sterile  simplicity,  but 
rather  an  immanent  relational  constitution  (the  objectivity 
of  relations  being  inseparable  from  the  objectivity  of 
things  as  their  real  terms)  which  is  an  infinite  and  eternal 
productivity  of  real  forms  as  the  finite  Many,  and  which 
is  both  organic  in  itself  and  organific  in  these  its  concrete 
products.  This  immanent  relational  constitution  of  the 
universe,  as  one  infinite  real  form  in  itself  and  infinitely 
many  real  forms  in  its  immanent  concrete  products,  is 
clearly  and  distinctly  conceivable  as  identity  in  difference 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF   KNOWLEDGE 


105 


of  substance,  essence,  and  process,  in  one  knowable  Reality, 
as  follows :  — 

I.  The  substance  of  the  world  is  one  infinite  and  eternal 
Energy,  or  Action  in  Thought,  as  the  mechanical  side  of 
the  organic  process,  that  is,  as  Evolution. 

II.  The  essence  of  the  world  is  one  infinite  and  eternal 
Reason,  or  Thought  in  Action,  as  the  teleological  side  of 
the  organic  process,  that  is,  as  Involution. 

III.  The  process  of  the  world  is  the  identity  in  difference 
of  Energy  and  Reason,  Action  in  Thought  and  Thought  in 
Action,  or  Evolution  and  Involution,  as  the  one  organic 
process  of  Life,  the  eternal  Syllogism  of  Being. 

IV.  The  Being  or  Reality  of  the  world  is  the  identity  in 
difference  of  this  substance,  this  essence,  and  this  process, 
as  One  All-Person,  the  Absolute  I.     (§  179,  adfinem.) 

V.  Whatever  may  lie  in  the  reality  of  the  world  as  not 
yet  known  may  add  to,  but  not  subtract  from,  the  reality 
of  what  is  known  already.  For,  just  so  far  as  it  goes, 
Knowledge  is  as  real  as  Being,  because  it  is  Being  itself 
as  conscious  Subject-Object. 

The  concept  of  substance  as  identity  in  difference  of 
Independent  Being  and  Dependent  Being,  therefore,  is 
involved  in  that  of  the  world  as  identity  in  difference  of 
substance,  essence,  and  process.  This  is  Reality  itself  — 
Energy  informed  by  Reason  in  the  course  of  the  actual 
universe.  Human  experience  gives  us  knowledge  of  De- 
pendent Being  as  the  Many  Units,  and  human  reason  gives 
us  knowledge  of  Independent  Being  as  the  One  Universal, 
—  two  distinguishable  but  inseparable  elements  of  knowl- 
edge as  science  of  the  Unit-Universal  of  Real  Existence. 
This  conception  of  Reality  may  be  simply  set  down  in  this 
little  diagram  of  the  "course  of  Nature"  from  the  One  to 
the  Many :  — 


World  /  B"*>«**n<^  =  Enerpry  =  Action  in  Thought  =  Mechanical  Evolution  \      World 
*19T  \     Process  =  Identity  in  Difference  of  Evolution  and  Involution  =  Life  -A  ^''Real 


Real 
Form 


\ 


Essence  =  Ileason  =  Thought  in  Action  =  Teleological  Involution   / 


Real 
Forms. 


»') 


106 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


§  192.  Reason  is  here  intended  to  connote  all  other 
essential  elements  of  personality,  of  which  it  is  the  domi- 
nant principle;  and  process  implies  its  own  law,  aim,  and 
ground,  as  indicated  in  §  179.  Reason  means  to  think,  and 
it  can  exist  as  ideality  only  in  real  ideation  —  that  is,  only 
as  Thought  in  Action.  Equally,  Energy  means  to  act,  and 
it  can  exist  as  actuality  only  in  real  actiou  —  that  is,  only 
as  Action  in  Thought.  Separate  and  isolate  Reason  from 
Energy,  as  is  done  by  rationalism, — or  separate  and  isolate 
Energy  from  Reason,  as  is  done  by  empiricism,  —  and  both 
vanish  from  reality  into  mere  abstraction.  It  is  only  as 
identity  in  difference  of  Reason  and  Energy  in  Life  that 
either  element  can  he  real.  That  is  why  their  separation 
yields  only  a  concept  of  the  Unreal  I,  while  their  identity 
in  difference  yields  the  only  concept  of  the  Real  I,  as 
explained  in  §  60  by  Tables  I  and  II;  also,  why  both 
empiricism  and  rationalism  reach  only  the  Irrational 
Antithesis  of  1  and  Not- We,  as  explained  in  §  71  by  Table 
III;  also,  why  all  systems  of  materialism,  or  Energy  with- 
out Reason,  and  all  systems  of  idealism,  or  Reason  without 
Energy,  are  equally  and  absolutely  failures  —  equally  and 
absolutely  incompetent  to  meet  the  just  demands  of  science 
and  scientific  realism.  Kant's  "pure  reason"  and  HegePs 
"pure  thought,"  that  is.  Reason  or  Thought  pure  from  all 
experience  or  empirical  elements,  and  therefore  pure  from 
all  admixture  of  Energy  as  affecting  the  understanding 
through  sensuous  or  intellective  perception,  ultimate  in 
nothing  but  unreal  abstractions  from  real  knowledge ;  and 
the  root  of  the  failure  lies  in  their  subjectivist  concepts  of 
substance. 

Kant  fatally  separated  Reason,  or  essence,  from  Energy, 
or  substance,  by  his  fundamental  doctrine  of  "synthesis 
a  priori,"  or  "spontaneity  of  knowledge"  in  the  pure 
understanding,  as  the  exclusively  subjective  origin  of  all 
relations  as  such.  The  consequence  was  that  "things  as 
they  are  in  themselves,"  being  divested  of  all  originally 
immanent  relations,  became  necessarily  unintelligible  as 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


107 


substance  without  essence,  and  nothing  was  left  to  be 
known  but  "phaenomena  alone,"  or  things  as  they  are  not 
in  themselves;  that  is,  essence  without  substance,  mere 
relations  created  by  and  inherent  in  the  subject,  abstrac- 
tions, absolute  unrealities,  nothing  but  pure  entia  rationis. 
Hegel  fared  no  better,  but  just  as  fatally  separated  Rea- 
son from  Energy,  though  he  transformed  Kant's  "subjec- 
tive idealism "  into  "  absolute  idealism."     He  says: 

"  According  to  the  Kantian  philosophy,  the  things  of  which  we 
know  are  only  phaenomena /or  us,  and  their  Ansich  \i.  e.  their  im- 
manent relational  constitutions,  the  relational  essence  which  makes 
the  substance  intelligible]  remains  for  us  an  unattainable  Beyond, 
The  common-sense  consciousness  has  justly  taken  umbrage  at  this 
subjective  idealism,  according  to  which  that  which  forms  the  con- 
tent of  our  consciousness  is  something  that  is  only  ours,  something 
which  is  posited  by  us.  In  fact,  the  true  relation  is  this  :  the 
things  of  which  we  immediately  know  are  not  only  mere  phae- 
nomena for  MS,  but  also  mere  phaenomena  in  themselves,  and  the 
peculiar  determination  of  finite  things  is  to  have  the  ground  of 
their  being,  not  in  themselves,  but  in  the  Divine  Idea.  This  con- 
ception of  things,  then,  is  to  be  designated  in  any  case  as  idealism, 
yet,  in  distinction  from  that  subjective  idealism  of  the  critical  phi- 
losophy, as  Absolute  Idealism ;  which  absolute  idealism,  although 
transcending  the  common  realistic  consciousness,  is  nevertheless  so 
little  to  be  considered  as  a  peculiarity  of  philosophy  that  it  rather 
forms  the  foundation  of  all  religious  consciousness,  namely,  in  so 
far  as  this,  too,  considers  the  total  content  of  all  that  exists,  in 
general  the  actual  world,  as  created  and  ruled  by  God."  ^ 

1  Encyklopadie,  Werke,  VI.  97,  98.  Of  course,  *'  phaenomena  in  them- 
selves" which  have  the  "ground  of  their  heing  in  the  Divine  Idea,"  yet 
are  also  ''phaenomena  for  us,"  can  have  no  possible  self-subsistence  or 
independent  being  in  themselves,  but  must  exist  only  as  effects  wrought 
in  the  human  subject  by  the  Divine  Subject.  This  conception  of  Hegel 
seems  scarcely,  if  at  all,  distinguishable  from  that  of  Berkeley  —  objects 
whose  only  esse  is  percipi,  to  be  explained  only  by  the  direct  action  of  the 
Divine  on  human  consciousness.  From  this  point  of  view,  the  distinction 
between  "  objective  idealism  "  in  Hegel  and  "subjective  idealism  "  in  Kant 
or  Berkeley  wholly  disap]>ears.  Kant  himself  opposed  Berkeley  and  **  sub- 
jective idealism,"  as  '*  mystical  and  visionary,"  as  mere  "cobwebs  of  the 
brain."    (Prolegomena,  Werke,  IV.  41,  42.) 


108 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


This  "objective"  or  "absolute  idealism  "is  frequently 
considered  as  conceding  the  "real  existence  of  a  material 
world,"  even  if  not  quite  in  the  way  that  "common  sense" 
wants  it ;  and  too  many  Hegelians,  who  would  not  accept 
this  view  if  they  discriminated  the  really  significant  state- 
ments of  Hegel  from  the  relatively  insignificant  ones,  so 
take  it.  The  most  important  of  the  significant  statements 
are  those  which  define  or  indicate  HegePs  concept  of  sub- 
stance, and  are  mainly  these  (the  italics  are  everywhere 
his  own) :  — 

"  The  need  of  philosophy  may  be  more  precisely  determined  by 
the  consideration  that,  since  Spirit  as  emotive  and  intuitive  has  for 
its  object  the  sensuous,  —  as  imagination,  images,  —  as  will,  aims, 
—  and  so  forth,  it  thus,  in  the  bare  opposition  or  distinction  of  these 
farms  of  its  existence  and  its  objects,  at  the  same  time  satisfies  its 
own  supreme  subjectivity.  Thought,  and  arrives  at  Thought  as  its 
object.  In  this  way  it  comes  to  itself  in  the  deepest  sense  of  the 
word,  for  its  principle,  its  unalloyed  selfhood,  is  Thought."  ^ 

"  As  for  the  beginning  which  philosophy  has  to  make,  it  seems, 
even  in  its  universaHty,  to  begin  with  a  subjective  presupposition, 
just  like  the  other  sciences  :  that  is  to  say,  just  as  they  make  Space, 
Number,  etc.,  their  particular  object,  so  philosophy  seems  to  be 
under  the  necessity  of  making  Thought  itself,  as  a  given  single 
fact,  the  particular  object  of  Thought.  But  this  is  the  free  act  of 
Thought,  to  put  itself  in  the  position  where  it  exists  for  itself,  and 
thereby /)ro(/ticcs  and  gives  to  itself  its  own  object.**^ 

"  Thought,  as  it  constitutes  the  substance  of  external  things,  is 
also  the  universal  substance  of  the  spiritual,"  • 

**  In  truth,  however,  as  we  have  just  seen.  Thought  is  that  which 
determines  itself  to  be  Will  (das  sich  selbst  zum  Willen  Bestimmende), 
and  the  former  remains  the  substance  of  the  latter."  * 

1  Encyklopadie,  Werke,  VI.  17. 

2  Ibid.  VI.  25. 
»  IMd.  VI.  46. 

*  Ibid.  VII.  ii.  358.  (Cf.  VIII.  35:  "Der  Wille  ist  eine  besondere 
Weise  des  Denkens.")  Hegel  here  contradicts  himself,  for  self-determina- 
tum  **  to  be  will"  presupprjses  the  will  to  determine.  Kuno  Fischer  very 
justly  remarks  :  *'  lu  this  transition  from  the  theoretical  to  the  practical 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


109 


"Thought  abides  with  itself,  relates  itself  to  itself,  and  has 
itself  for  object."  * 

♦*  The  Idea  shows  itself  as  the  Thought  which  is  absolutely 
identical  with  itself,  and  no  less  as  the  Activity  [/.  e.  AVill]  which 
places  itself  over  against  itself  in  order  to  be  for  itself,  and  in  this 
Other  merely  abides  with  itself."  * 

•*  The  objective  meaning  of  the  figures  of  the  syllogism  is  in 
general  this,  that  everything  rational  (alles  Vernunftige)  shows 
itself  as  a  threefold  syllogism,  and  indeed  in  such  a  manner  that 
each  of  its  members  just  as  well  assumes  the  position  of  an  ex- 
treme as  it  does  that  of  the  mediating  middle  term.  This  is 
particularly  the  case  with  the  three  members  of  the  philosophical 
science,  that  is,  the  Logical  Idea,  Nature,  and  Spirit.  Here,  in 
the  first  place.  Nature  is  the  middle  or  connecting  member. 
Nature,  this  immediate  totality,  unfolds  itself  in  the  two  extremes 
of  the  Logical  Idea  and  Spirit.  Spirit,  however,  is  only  Spirit 
while  it  is  mediated  by  Nature.  Then,  in  the  second  place,  the 
Spirit  which  we  know  as  the  Individual  and  the  Active  is  just  as 
much  the  middle,  and  Nature  and  the  Logical  Idea  are  the  ex- 
tremes.    It  is  Spirit  which  knows  the  Logical  Idea  in  Nature,  and 

spirit  there  lies  a  certain  ambiguity.  Is  it  the  result  of  the  whole 
previous  development  that  the  Intelligence  knows  itself  as  Will,  or 
that  it  makes  itself  Will  and  becomes  Will  ?  If  we  look  back  to  the  l)c- 
ginning,  we  must  answer  this  question  affirmatively  in  its  first  alternative. 
...  At  the  beginning  of  the  development  of  the  theoretical  spirit,  the 
Will  appears  as  the  moving  principle  —  at  the  close,  as  the  emergent  result ; 
there  it  is  primary,  here  secondary.  As  to  the  relation  between  Will  and 
Intellect,  therefore,  there  exists  just  as  unmistakable  an  agreement  between 
Hegel  and  Schopenhauer  there,  as  here  the  unmistakable  opposition  and 
conflict.  Here,  therefore,  a  contradiction  makes  itself  observable  which 
affects  the  Hegelian  doctrine  itself."  (Geschiehte  der  neuern  Philosophic, 
VII.  ii.  683.)  Again:  "The  Hegelian  psychology  has  proved  that  there 
is  no  Will  without  Thought,  but  also  no  Thought  without  Will,  since  the 
whole  development  of  the  theoretical  Intelligence  starts  from  intuition, 
which  itself  presupposes  attention  and  the  act  of  the  IVill  necessary  to  it." 
{Ibid.  692.)  Then  the  Hegelian  psychology  itself  disproves  the  Hegelian 
metaphysic  which  makes  Thought  the  one  sole  substance.  The  identity 
in  difference  of  Thought  and  Will  can  be  only  that  of  Reason  and  Energy 
as  Person  —  Energy  as  substance  and  Reason  as  essence,  which  is  our  con- 
tention against  Hegel. 

*  Encyklopadie,  Werke,  VI.  63. 

»  Ibid.  VI.  26. 


no 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


so  elevates  it  to  its  essence.  In  the  third  place,  the  Logical  Idea 
itself  is  just  as  much  the  middle ;  it  is  the  ahsolute  substance  of 
Spirit  as  well  as  of  Nature, —the  Universal,  the  All-Pervading. 
These  are  the  members  of  the  absolute  syllogism."  * 

**The  definition  of  the  Absolute,  that  it  is  the  Idea,  is  itself 
absolute.  All  previous  definitions  return  to  this.  .  .  .  The  Idea 
itself  is  not  to  be  taken  as  an  Idea  of  Something  [von  irgend  Ettoas^y 
just  as  little  as  the  Notion  is  to  be  taken  as  determined  Notion. 
The  Absolute  is  the  One  Idea,  which,  as  judging,  particularizes 
itself  in  the  system  of  determined  ideas,  which,  however,  exist 
as  determined  ideas  only  to  return  to  the  One  Idea,  to  its  truth. 
It  is  first  of  all  from  this  act  of  judgment  that  the  Idea  is  the  one 
universal  substance,  but  its  developed  genuine  reality  is  that  it 
exists  as  Subject,  and  so  as  Spirit."  * 

Briefly :  Thought  is  the  only  Substance  —  that  is,  noth- 
ing exists  but  ideas,  as  fleeting  forms  in  the  eternal  dia- 
lectic of  self-contradiction  and  self-reconciliation  as  the 
One  Idea.  This  is  the  fundamental  and  distinctive  stand- 
point of  Absolute  Idealism. 

§  193.  These  few  passages  are  enough  to  determine  with 
great  precision  the  fundamental  position  of  Hegel  as  to 
the  concept  of  substance,  on  which  everything  else  in 
philosophy  depends.     What  he  found  in  previous  modern 

1  Encyklopadie,  Werke,  VI.  353,  354.  If  any  one  should  assert  that 
Hegel's  objective  or  absolute  syllogism  resembles  or  is  identical  with  our 
Syllogism  of  Being,  he  would  only  convict  himself  of  the  grossest  incapacity 
for  fundamental  distinctions.  For  Hegel  recognizes  no  "substance"  in 
Nature  or  in  Spirit  but  the  Logical  Idea  itself,  nothing  but  Thought  or 
Reason  —  Reason  without  Energy ;  while  we  consider  Reason  without 
Energy,  just  as  much  as  Energj'  without  Reason,  to  be  absolute  nothingness 
or  non-existence.  Hegel  never  blunders  on  this  prime  principle  of  Thought 
the  only  Substance  —  there  is  no  place  in  his  system  for  Energy,  as  an 
element  just  as  substantial  as  Thought,  Reason,  Logical  Idea.  To  con- 
found this  philosophy  with  Hegel's,  or  to  imagine  it  derived  from  Hegel's, 
when  its  source  has  been  simply  the  logical  implications  of  the  anti- 
Hegelian  principle  of  the  objectivity  of  relations,  —  and  this  has  been  done, 
—  ought  to  be  impossible  for  any  critic  who  is  both  educated  and  honest. 
For  Hegel  himself,  if  he  were  alive,  would  be  the  first  to  disown  it  —  with 
emphasis. 

2  Ibid.  VI.  385,  386. 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


111 


thinkers  as  materials  from  which  to  construct  it,  on  the 
general  basis  of  the  Aristotelian  Paradox  (§§  122-129), 
may  be  shortly  summed  up,  taking  account  of  great  dis- 
tinct standpoints  alone,  as  follows :  — 

Spinoza  represented  the  standpoint  of  ontological  monism, 
the  doctrine  of  the  absolute  reality  as  One  Independent 
Being.  The  one  sole  substance  was  God,  the  Absolute 
Unit  as  the  necessary  juxtaposition  or  indissoluble  union, 
not  the  identity  in  difference,  of  Extension  and  Thought 

—  real  Extension  and  nominal  Thought  as  real  Thong htless- 
iiess  ;  its  essence  was  purposeless  necessity,  that  is,  purely 
mechanical  force ;  and  its  process  was  the  eternal  concate- 
nation of  mechanical  causes  in  a  twofold  chain,  in  the 
connected  but  alien  attributes  of  Extension  and  Thought. 
This  was  the  conception  of  the  world  as  nothing  but 
Energy  in  a  machine,  notwithstanding  its  apparent  but 
deceptive  recognition  of  Thought  as  a  purposeless  intellect 

—  which  is  no  intellect. 

Leibnitz  represented  the  standpoint  of  ontological  plural- 
ism, the  doctrine  of  the  absolute  reality  as  Many  Independ- 
ent Beings.  The  innumerable  substances  were  monads, 
unextended  but  thinking  individuals,  Absolute  Units  of 
Thought;  their  common  essence  was  individual  self- 
developing  activity;  and  their  common  process  was  the 
mirroring  or  representation,  with  varying  degrees  of 
clearness  and  distinctness,  of  the  universe  of  monads  by 
each  monad  in  isolated  subjective  thinking.  This  was  the 
conception  of  the  world  as  nothing  but  Thought  in  a  mul- 
titude of  ontologically  independent  centres  or  subjects  — 
Thought  as  the"  Many. 

Kant  represented  the  standpoint  of  individual  subject- 
ivism or  phaenomenism,  the  doctrine  of  the  relativity  of 
knowledge  in  each  individual  subject  as  the  true  reality  of 
Subjective  Dependent  Being :  a  doctrine  which  is,  in  truth, 
the  absorption  and  disappearance  of  individual  subject  and 
individual  object  in  the  relation  of  which  they  are  the 
terms,  and  on  which,  as  the  sole  true  reality,    they  both 


112 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOrilY 


depend  (Pure  Formalism,  Pure  Relation  ism).  The  only 
real  substance  was  this  relativity  of  knowledge  itself,  as 
the  formal  relation  of  the  unformed  to  the  unformed,  that 
is,  of  an  unknown  logical  subject  (the  I  =  a:)  to  an  un- 
known real  object  (noumena  =  unknowable  things  as  they 
are  in  themselves,  phaenomena  =  knowable  things  as  they 
are  not  in  themselves:  with  either  as  real  object,  the  "re- 
lativity of  knowledge"  =  error  or  absolute  ignorance). 
The  essence  of  this  substance  was  the  exclusive  subject- 
ivity of  relations.  The  process  was  "pure  synthesis  a 
prioriy"  or  free  subjective  creation  of  all  relations  by  the 
individual  understanding  as  "spontaneity  of  knowledge." 
This  cannot  be  called  a  conception  of  the  world  at  all,  for 
it  gives  us  a  mere  Je  ne  sais  quoL 

Out  of  these  heterogeneous  elements,  Hegel,  with  mar- 
vellous ingenuity,  wove  the  web  of  his  absolute  idealism. 

From  Spinoza  he  took  the  principle  of  the  absolute  mon- 
ism of  substance,  but  rejected  the  principle  of  mechanism. 
Handicapped  by  his  own  juxtaposition  of  Extension  and 
Tkought  as  incompatible  attributes  of  the  one  substance, 
Spinoza  had  been  logically  compelled,  in  order  to  preserve 
the  unity  of  process  in  both  attributes,  to  drop  Thought 
by  construing  it  as  a  purposeless  and  mechanically  moved 
intellect,  devoid  both  of  will  and  understanding;  whereby 
his  one  substance,  as  compound  of  real  Extension  with  real 
Thoughtlessness,  could  be  moved  only  by  mechanical  causa- 
tion as  its  one  process.  But  Hegel  took  the  other  horn 
of  the  dilemma.  Equally  unable  to  reconcile  Extension 
with  Thought,  he  dropped  the  former  entirely,  expunged 
the  whole  mechanical  process  to  universalize  the  logical, 
and  kept  Thought  alone  as  the  one  sole  substance,  as  declared 
so  explicitly  in  the  foregoing  extracts  —  Thought  purified 
from  all  Experience  of  Extension  as  Matter,  Mechanism, 
or  Mechanical  Energy  (reines  Benken), 

From  Leibnitz  Hegel  took  the  principle  of  free  self- 
development  as  the  aJ)solute  process  in  substance^  but  rejected 
that  of  pluralism  of  substances,  or  Thought  as  the  Many. 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


113 


'I 


His  monistic  process  is  the  Infinite  Logic,  Thought  as  the 
One,  self-activity  as  free  self-determination  in  the  dialec- 
tical unfolding  of  the  notion  in  the  one  eternal  self- 
thinking  {Begriff  des  Begriffes,  reine  Idee),  His  idea  is  not 
the  "Idea  of  Something,"  but  has  its  infinite  Being  as  the 
One  Absolute  Idea  of  itself,  in  itself,  and  for  itself. 

From  Kant  Hegel  took  the  principle  of  subjectivism, 
but  freed  it  from  the  narrowness  of  Kant's  individualistic 
standpoint  by  universalizing  the  individual  subject  as  the 
knowable  (not  unknowable)  Absolute  Subject,  and  making 
this,  as  Absolute  Spirit,  the  absolute  essence  in  substance. 
He  thus  brought  substance,  essence,  and  process,  the  three 
great  elements  of  Reality,  into  the  unity  of  a  true  synthe- 
sis as  identity  in  difference  —  one  absolute  substance  as 
Thought,  one  absolute  essence  as  Subject  or  Spirit,  and 
one  absolute  process  as  self-development,  free  self-deter- 
mination, or  dialectical  Self- Activity.  So  constituted  as 
a  pure  Monism  of  Thought,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at 
that  HegePs  absolute  idealism  won  and  so  long  held  an 
immense  influence  in  the  philosophical  world ;  for  no  pre- 
vious system  ever  exhibited  on  the  whole  so  high  or  so 
superb  a  degree  of  self-harmony. 

§  194.  Nevertheless,  the  imposing  structure  rests  on  a 
false  foundation  in  its  concept  of  substance,  and  this  falsity 
has  wrought  the  ruin  of  its  influence  by  alienating  the 
scientific  mind.  The  real  substance  of  the  world,  the  one 
sole  and  universal  substance,  is  not  Thought,  but  Energy, 
without  which  Thought  itself  could  not  exist  as  Self- 
Activity.  HegePs  admission  of  Self-Activity  into  his 
panlogism  is  his  unwilling,  if  not  unconscious,  confession 
that  his  panlogism  itself  is  fundamentally  false  — that 
Thought,  after  all,  is  not  the  one  sole  substance.  Energy, 
on  the  contrary,  is  the  substance,  and  Thought  or  Reason 
(in  fuller  truth.  Personality)  is  the  essence,  of  the  real 
universe :  abolition  of  either  element  would  be  the  renas- 
cence of  chaos.  When,  ignoring  Energy  altogether  as 
mechanical  causation  because  recognition  of  it  would  have 

VOL.    II.  —  8 


114 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE   SYLLOGISM  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


115 


I'l  t 


^^1 


involved  that  empirical  element  from  which  all  idealistic 
thought  must  be  "pure,"  yet  compelled  to  recognize  it  as 
spiritual  self-activity  because  without  this  even  idealistic 
thought  itself  could  not  think  at  all,  Hegel  put  pure 
Thought  in  the  position  of  the  one  sole  substance,  he  not 
only  fatally  separated  the  real  substance  and  the  real  es- 
sence of  the  world,  but  no  less  fatally  confounded  the  real 
distinction  between  substance  and  essence  as  such  by  put- 
ting "  form  "  in  the  place  of  "  matter."  In  justice  to  him, 
however,  it  must  be  admitted  that  here  he  wavered  just  as 
his  master  Aristotle  had  wavered  before  him.  Conceiving 
v\ri  as  pure  potentiality,  that  is,  unreality  now  and  reality 
by  and  by,  Aristotle  had  conceived  substance  first  as  cTSos  -f 
v\r}j  TO  <rvvo\ov  or  toSc  tl,  and  then  as  cTSos  alone,  using  the 
same  name  ova-ia  for  both  conceptions.  In  taking  "  form  " 
as  itself  the  only  real  or  non-potential  "matter,"  essence  as 
the  only  true  substance,  or  Thought  alone  as  the  only  true 
Being,  Hegel  might  plead  so  far  the  authority  of  Aristotle's 
own  wavering  example. 

Nevertheless,  essence  and  substance  are  equally  real  and 
equally  necessary,  and  philosophy  ends  in  smoke  when  it 
confounds  them.  The  distinction  lies  in  the  very  heart  of 
truth.  The  crude  and  blind  representation  of  matter  as 
inaction,  dead  atoms  moving  only  as  they  are  moved,  has 
passed  by.  Matter  is  action  in  work;  motion,  rest,  inertia 
itself,  are  only  modes  of  action;  nothing  whatever  is 
known  of  matter  which  is  not  action  in  molecular  systems 
internally  and  externally  related.  The  substance  or  matter 
of  the  world  is  nothing  but  Energy ;  its  essence  is  Form ; 
and,  when  form  is  understood  as  immanent  relational  con- 
stitution, the  form  or  essence  of  the  world  is  seen  to  be 
nothing  but  Thought,  Reason,  Subject-Object,  Absolute  I. 
Thought  is  not  substance  at  all;  in  all  the  fulness  of  its 
significance,  it  is  the  essence  of  the  world,  origin  and 
ultimation  of  all  forms  in  Person  as  the  Form  of  Forms. 
The  taking  of  Thought  as  the  sole  substance,  instead  of 
the  taking  of  it  as  the  essence  of  substance,  was  logically 


\ 


r. 


the  exclusion  of  Energy,  not  only  as  mechanical  causation, 
but  also  as  spiritual  activity,  from  the  system  of  absolute 
idealism;  retention  of  it  in  the  latter  shape  was  wholly 
without  logical  warrant,  aud  logically  involved  retention 
of  all  those  empirical  elements  without  which  activity, 
whether  mechanical  or  spiritual,  is  both  inconceivable  and 
impossible  —  a  consequence  which  detroys  the  supposed 
purity  of  "pure  thought."  The  incurable  fault  of  the 
Hegelian  philosophy,  therefore,  incurable  by  all  the  de- 
vices and  expedients  of  Neo-Hegelianism,  is  its  own  funda- 
mental, genetic,  and  constitutive  principle:  namely,  its' 
panlogism,  its  own  ideal  as  relnes  Denken,  its  one-sided 
exclusion  of  Erfahrung,  its  putting  of  Thought,  which  is 
the  form  or  essence,  into  the  false  position  of  the  matter 
or  substance.  This  initial  fault  works  itself  out  in  the 
final  result  as  the  impersonality  of  Thought  in  the  Subject, 
the  Spirit,  the  Absolute  Idea.  For  we  saw  in  Chapter  XI, 
(§§  131,  143)  how  HegePs  Pure  I,  in  its  supreme  develop- 
ment as  the  Spirit,  becomes  the  Pure  It.  This  ultimate 
equation  of  the  Spirit,  or  Pure  I,  with  the  It,  or  the  Not-I, 
in  consequence  of  which  the  Subject  ceases  to  be  the  I  at 
all  and  Thought  becomes  Unthought,  is  nothing  but  the 
legitimate,  natural,  and  necessary  consequence  of  the 
original  endeavor  to  think  Thought  as  the  one  sole  sub- 
stance, to  abstract  it  from  Energy,  and  to  separate  it 
thereby  from  all  Experience  of  Energy,  as  reines  Denken, 

§  195.  The  conception  of  substance  as  Energy  is  no  in- 
vention of  ours.  Not  to  mention  Leibnitz,  Kant  himself, 
and  other  philosophical  pioneers  in  that  direction,  the 
growing  and  spreading  spirit  of  scientific  objectivism, 
which  long  since  broke  the  influence  of  "absolute  ideal- 
ism "  in  the  country  that  gave  it  birth,  and  which  will  ere 
long  break  its  influence  in  the  countries  of  its  emigration, 
now  sanctions  that  conception  on  physical  grounds  in 
strictly  scientific  circles.  It  is  enough  here  to  quote  Pro- 
fessor Ostwald,  who  has  prominently  advocated  it  for  many 
years ; — 


1/ 


u 


fl 


116 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


**  It  lies  close  at  hand  to  see  in  Energy  a  real  existence,  not 
merely  a  mathematical  abstraction.  Four  years  ago  I  emphasized 
this  thought  on  occasion  of  my  inaugural  address  at  Leipzig,  with- 
out being  conscious  at  the  time  that  it  had  been  previously  expressed 
in  the  most  unambiguous  manner  by  J.  R.  Mayer,  the  discoverer 
of  the  energy-principle,  in  his  first  short  memoir  [1842],  and  that 
Tait,  in  the  year  1885,  had  accented  the  same  thought  with  refer- 
ence to  the  equivalence  and  convertibility  of  forces.  Meanwhile  I 
was  still  so  far  entangled  in  the  common  ideas  of  the  reality  of 
Matter  that  the  utmost  I  ventured  to  do  was  to  assign  to  Energy 
an  equal  position  by  the  side  of  Matter  as  *  substance.'  My  more 
searching  investigations  into  the  properties  and  nature  of  Energy, 
begun  since  then,  have  in  the  meantime  led  me  farther.  The  more 
intimately  acquainted  I  became  with  these  properties,  the  clearer 
became  the  proof  that  Matter  is  nothing  but  a  system  of  energies 
[«n  Komplex  der  Energie/aktoren]^  which  possess  the  property  of 
being  reciprocally  proportional.  In  fact,  the  traditional  funda- 
mental properties  of  Matter  show  themselves  as  factors  of  Energy, 
or,  if  one  prefers,  its  forms  of  expression.  Thus  mass  is  the  capa- 
city for  kinetic  energy,  gravity  the  intensity  of  space-energy,  im- 
penetrability (that  is,  volume)  the  capacity  for  volume-energy,  and 
so  forth.  In  this  manner,  on  keen  inspection.  Matter  more  and 
more  vanishes  behind  Energy,  and  the  latter  irresistibly  exchanges 
its  former  subordinate  or  at  most  co-ordinate  position  for  the  most 
absolute  primacy.*'  ^ 

1  W.  Ostwald,  Studien  zur  Energetik,  Zeitschrift  fur  physikalische 
Chemie,  IX.  566  :  Leipzig,  1892.  Even  E.  Haeckel  shows  a  marked  tend- 
ency to  the  same  conception:  "I  postulate  for  ether  a  special  structure 
which  is  not  atomistic,  like  that  of  ponderable  matter,  and  which  may 
provisionally  be  called  (without  further  determination)  etfieric  or  dynamic 
structure."  (Riddle  of  the  Universe,  trans.  McCabe,  1901,  p.  227.) 
T.  H.  Huxley  still  more  nearly  approaches  it:  "Thus  the  most  obvious 
attribute  of  the  cosmos  is  its  impermanence.  It  assumes  the  aspect  not  so 
much  of  a  permanent  entity  as  of  a  changeful  process  in  which  naught  en- 
dures save  the  flow  of  energy  and  the  rational  order  which  pervades  it." 
(Evolution  and  Ethics,  1899,  p.  50.)  If  Huxley  had  only  held  fast  to  this 
position,  and  perceived  that  no  "rational  order"  can  possibly  be  non- 
ethical,  he  would  never  have  written  the  Romanes  lecture.  But  Professor 
C.  S.  Minot  has  put  the  dynamical  theory  of  matter  with  admirable  terse- 
ness and  vigor  in  his  President's  Address  before  the  American  Association 
ior  the  Advancement  of  Science,  at  Pittsburgh,  June  28,  1902:  "All  our 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


117 


§  196.  By  strictly  following  its  own  lines  of  investiga- 
tion, therefore,  objectivism  as  physical  science  has  thus 
already  reached  a  higher  and  deeper  philosophical  truth 
than  Hegel  ever  discerned  in  his  "absolute  idealism," 
which  is  nevertheless  the  finest  product  of  "  pure  reason  a 
priori"  or  "pure  thought."  According  to  modernized 
physics  itself,  as  we  see  in  Ostwald,  Energy  is  "sub- 
stance," and  Matter  is  only  a  "system  of  energies."  That 
is,  if  thought  out  logically  and  fully  in  accordance  with 
the  law  of  unit-universals,  Energy  is  the  Universal  Sub- 
stance, and  Matter,  whether  as  "atom"  or  "ion,"  or  still 
smaller  "  corpuscle  "  or  "  electron  "  of  electricity,  or  small- 
est "particle"  of  the  luminiferous  ether,  is  nothing  but 
the  Units  of  Energy.  But  no  less  true  is  it  that  Mind, 
also,  is  only  a  system  of  energies,  another  Unit  of  which 
Energy  is  still  the  Universal  Substance.  In  other  words. 
Energy  is  the  one  and  only  substance,  of  which  Mind  and 
Matter  are  the  two  real  forms  or  essences.  But  these  two 
forms,  unlike  Spinoza's  two  attributes,  are  neither  alien 
nor  apart.  The  unit  of  matter  is  a  system  of  moving 
energies,  of  which  the  principle  is  mechanical  causality 
or  necessary  unconscious  motion;  the  unit  of  mind  is  a 
system  of  thinking  energies,  of  which  the  principle  is 
teleological  self-activity  or  free  conscious  action ;  and  the 
person  is  identity  in  difference  of  matter  and  mind,  me- 
chanical causality  and  teleological  self-activity,  necessary 
unconscious  motion  and  free  conscious  action,  organized  as 
a  living  system  of  moving  and  thinking  energies  in  which 
the  machine,  the  organism,  and  the  person  all  exist,  act, 
interact,  and  co-act  in  complete  working  harmony.     In 

sensations  are  caused  by  force  and  by  force  only,  so  that  the  biologist  can 
say  that  our  senses  bring  no  evidence  of  matter.  The  concept  *  matter ' 
is  an  irrational  transfer  of  notions  derived  from  the  gross  molar  world  of 
the  senses  to  the  molecular  world.  Faraday  long  ago  jwinted  out  that 
nothing  was  gained  and  much  lost  by  the  hypothesis  of  material  atoms, 
and  his  position  seems  to  me  impregnable.  It  would  be  a  great  contribu- 
tion to  science  to  kill  oflf  the  hypothesis  of  matter  as  distinct  from  force." 


\i 


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THE   SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


the  finite,  this  working  harmony  is  a  fact  of  constant 
experience  in  every  I  as  One  of  the  We;  and  its  proved 
actuality  in  the  finite  is  assuredly  no  proof  of  its  impos- 
sibility in  the  Infinite.  If  Energy  is  the  absolute  sub- 
stance, and  Thought  as  Personality  is  the  absolute  essence, 
then  the  identity  in  diiference  of  substance  and  essence, 
Energy  and  Reason  or  Thought  or  Personality,  is  certainly, 
even  from  the  standpoint  of  "speculative  philosophy" 
itself,  a  higher  "  Idea  "  than  that  of  Thought  the  sole  sub- 
stance and  Iinpersonality  the  sole  essence^  as  a  "  Subject "  or 
"  Spirit "  which  is  no  more  than  the  barren  Verhdltniss  of 
Ich  to  Ich  in  the  formula  Ich  =  Ich,  a  mere  treaty  of  alli- 
ance as  a  "  reconciling  Yes  "  which  is  only  the  relation  of 
two  separate  Yeses  (§  142). 

So  conceived,  man  is  the  identity  in  difference  of  matter 
and  mind  as  finite  person,  and  God  is  the  identity  in  differ- 
ence of  Nature  and  Spirit  as  infinite  All-Person.  In  such 
a  conception,  which  is  in  perfect  congruity  with  the  scien- 
tific method  and  is  fitly  named  scientific  theism,  there  is 
no  room  for  the  old  difficulty  as  to  the  possibility  of  inter- 
action between  matter  and  mind,  or  body  and  soul;  both 
of  these,  as  correlated  systems  of  energies,  are  of  one 
substance,  not  two  substances,  and  interaction  between 
correlated  energies,  instead  of  being  inconceivable,  is  the 
known  condition  of  the  known  existence  of  energy  itself 
as  action  and  reaction.  This  truth  is  involved  in  the 
equivalence  and  convertibility  of  natural  forces.  The 
inconceivable  thing  would  be,  not  that  matter  and  mind 
should  act  on  each  other,  but  rather  that  they  should  not 
both  act  and  react  on  each  other.  If  Energy  is  the  sole 
substance,  then,  and  if  mind  and  matter  are  in  us  united 
but  different  forms  of  this  one  substance,  as  different  but 
co-working  systems  of  energies,  the  old  difficulty  vanishes. 
So,  too,  vanish  the  old  difficulties  as  to  the  communication 
of  motion  between  masses,  and  the  communication  of 
knowledge  between  minds;  for  these,  too,  are  but  cases 
of  action  and  reaction  in  Energy  as  one  and  the  same  uni- 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


119 


versal  substance,  and  non-influence,  not  influence,  would 
be  the  miracle.  So,  too,  the  old  absurdity  of  considering 
mind  as  a  mere  inexplicable  phaenomenon  of  matter  (mate- 
rialism), and  the  equal  absurdity  of  considering  matter 
as  a  mere  inexplicable  phaenomenon  of  mind  (idealism), 
equally  vanish;  for  nothing  could  be  more  absurd  than  to 
consider  the  essence  of  one  form  of  substance  to  be  a  mere 
phaenomenon  of  the  essence  of  another  form  of  the  same 
substance.  One  might  as  well  consider  land  as  a  phae- 
nomenon of  water,  Mont  Blanc  as  a  phaenomenon  of  the 
Bay  of  Biscay. 

Lastly,  the  question  of  the  permanence  of  personality, 
the  question  of  the  "future  life,"  takes  on  anew  aspect, 
and  is  totally  transformed.     So  long  as  body  and  soul  were 
considered  to  be  two  absolutely  disparate  and  independent 
substances,  the  person,  as  actual  but  transient  combination 
of  the  two,  was  an  insoluble  scientific  mystery,  and  death, 
as  separation  of  the  two,  left  no  rational  ground  for  expec- 
tation of  the  permanence  of  personality;   personal  con- 
sciousness seemed  absolutely  conditioned  on  that  irrational 
combination  as  person,  and  such  an  expectation  found  no 
warrant  except  in  supernatural  revelation.     But,  if  body 
is  a  system  of  mechanical  energies  as  one  form  of  sub- 
stance, if  soul  is  a  system  of  spiritual  energies  as  another 
form  of  substance,  and  if  person  is  the  identity  in  differ- 
ence of  mechanical  and  spiritual  energies  as  organic  union 
of  these  two  forms  in  a  still  higher  form  of  one  and  the 
same  substance,  the  question  of  the  permanence  of  person- 
ality after  death  becomes  a  wholly  new  question :  namely, 
is  the  finite  person  of  sufficient  intrinsic  value  or  worth  to 
warrant  a  rational  expectation  that  the  infinite  All-Person, 
acting  by  the  law  of  ethical  personality  as  its  own  Divine 
nature,  includes   the  permanence  of  finite  personality  in 
the  warp  and  woof  of  the  actual,  as  the  slow  working  out 
of  its  own  Divine  ideal?     In  other  words,  is  it  reasonable 
to  think  that  the  person  as  free  and  self -conscious  ethical 
being,  as  the  I  in  the  We,  which  is  the  actual  outcome  of 


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THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


evolution  and  involution  in  an  unvarying  cosmical  process 
lasting  untold  millions  of  years,  was  also  in  so  far  the 
involved  end  and  aim  of  that  process  from  the  beginning  ? 
That  the  worth  of  the  person  as  product  justifies  the  cost 
of  the  process  as  the  evil  of  suffering?  That  the  infinite 
All-Person  is  able  to  preserve  what  it  has  certainly  been 
able,  at  the  cost  of  such  patient  and  unflagging  labor,  to 
produce?  That  there  need  be  no  inherent  impossibility  of 
preserving  it,  as  still  the  identity  in  difference  of  mechani- 
cal and  spiritual  energies  in  personal  form,  although  to  us 
now  imperceptible,  under  conditions  of  existence  beyond 
the  scope  of  our  very  limited  present  perceptive  powers? 
And  that,  in  the  absence  of  such  impossibility,  the  ethical 
All-Person  is  ethically  bound  to  preserve  it?  Such  ques- 
tions as  these  certainly  suggest  an  affirmative  rational 
answer.  They  are  not  unreasonable,  at  least,  and  open 
new  fields  of  investigation  in  quite  new  directions.  For 
they  do  not  arise  legitimately  at  all  in  physics,  or  chemis- 
try, or  anatomy,  or  physiology,  or  biology,  or  psychology, 
and,  if  raised  illegitimately  there,  are  rightly  dismissed  as 
irrelevant  or  even  impertinent;  they  are  ethical  questions 
at  bottom,  concern  only  the  intrinsic  use  and  conduct  and 
worth  of  personal  life,  and  are  raised  legitimately  in  ethics 
alone,  and  in  ethics  alone  will  receive  their  final  answer. 
It  is  enough  here  to  point  out  this  very  important  conse- 
quence of  the  principle  of  personality  as  above  defined,  in 
accordance  with  the  concept  of  Energy  as  the  sole  sub- 
stance, and  to  pass  on  to  further  consideration  of  this. 

§  197.  Thanks  to  the  heroes  of  science,  Mohr  and  Mayer 
and  Helmholtz,  Faraday  and  Joule  and  Kelvin  and  Colding, 
and  many  others,  the  world  has  learned  that  all  natural 
forces  are  one  Force,  all  natural  energies  one  Energy. 
But  it  has  not  yet  fully  learned,  as  Ostwald  seems  to  have 
learned,  that  Energy  is  the  sole  Substance  of  the  universe. 
Still  less  has  it  learned  that  matter  and  mind  are  but  two 
kindred  and  inseparable  modes  or  forms  of  this  one  sub- 
stance, united  in  each  of  us  as  finite  persons  and  in  the 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


121 


infinite  All-Person,  and  that  in  this  one  essential  consti- 
tution of  personality,  at  once  mechanical,  organic,  and 
spiritual,  lies  the  profound  identity  in  difference  of  the 
finite  Human  and  the  infinite  Divine.  But  more  still  re- 
mains to  be  said  about  Energy  as  the  sole  substance. 

I.  Energy  means  to  energize,  to  do,  to  act.  It  is  the 
universal  reality  of  Being  in  Existence,  as  the  One  in  the 
Many.  It  maintains  itself  as  Being  solely  as  Acting.  But 
to  act  is  necessarily  (1)  to  act  on  something,  and  (2)  to  be 
something  in  order  to  act  on  something;  for  to  act  on 
nothing  would  be  not  to  act,  and  to  be  nothing  would  be 
equally  not  to  act.  In  brief,  Being  is  Acting,  and  Acting 
is  Being.  So  far  Leibnitz  was  right,  and  it  was  a  great 
advance  in  thought.  This  is  the  aboriginal  self-identity 
of  Energy  as  Substance,  its  inner  necessity  as  self-exist- 
ence, its  inner  reciprocity  as  One  and  Many.  But  self- 
identity  is  eo  ipso  self -difference,  likewise ;  two  cannot  be 
one  unless  they  are  also  two.  That  is,  the  identity  depends 
on  the  difference,  and  the  difference  depends  on  the  iden- 
tity ;  each  conditions  the  other.  If  Being  were  non-active, 
or  if  Acting  were  non-existent,  both  would  vanish:  the 
self-identity  of  Energy  as  Substance  is  the  necessary  iden- 
tity in  difference  of  Being  and  Acting. 

II.  Substance  as  Energy,  then,  signifies  — to  Be  by 
Acting  and  to  Act  by  Being:  Energy  is  the  Absolute  One 
as  Acting,  But  the  Absolute  One  can  act  only  on  itself 
and  within  itself;  beyond  it  there  is  and  can  be  nothing 

it  is  the  Absolute  All;  it  must  be  the  Absolute  One  as 

Acting  on  something  which  is  both  identical  with  itself 
and  yet  different  from  itself,  and  which  is  within  itself; 
and  this  can  only  be  the  Many.  In  other  words.  Energy, 
as  sole,  universal,  active  substance  of  the  world,  can  act 
on  something,  and  itself  exist  as  something,  only  by  evolv- 
ing the  Many  within  itself  as  the  One;  it  can  be  and  act 
only  as  the  universal  which  particularizes  itself  in  its 
own  units;  it  can  be  and  act  only  as  the  infinite  generic 
unit-universal  of  Energy   which   particularizes   itself    in 


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122 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  rfflLOSOPHY 


finite  unit-universals  of  specific  energies.  That  is,  the 
Absolute  Energy  can  exist  only  in  a  state  of  internal 
polarity  or  tension  which,  as  endless  change,  motion  and 
rest,  alternation  of  kinetic  and  potential  forms,  or  identity 
in  difference  of  continuity  and  discontinuity,  is  mechanical 
evolution  of  the  Many  in  the  One  throughout  Space  and 
Time.  This  is  the  necessary  derivation  of  the  atom  from 
the  universe,  already  foreshadowed  in  physics  by  the 
hypotheses  of  Prout  and  Lockyer,  and  it  holds  good  uni- 
versally as  the  law  that  every  universal  particularizes 
itself  in  its  own  units  (Ahleitung  des  Besonderen  aus  dem 
Allgemeinen). 

III.  In  this  mechanical  evolution  as  the  origination  of 
the  Many  in  the  One,  Energy  is  the  doing  of  work,  and 
work  is  the  overcoming  of  resistance.  But  to  resist  is  to 
act,  and  resistance  is  itself  Energy;  Energy  can  act  only 
on  Energy,  and  nothing  but  Energy  can  resist  Energy;! 
Energy  can  limit  Energy,  and  nothing  but  Energy  can 
limit  Energy.  This  is  the  absolute  quantitative  equality 
of  action  and  reaction,  each  of  which  is  Energy  alone.  The 
necessary  equality  of  action  and  reaction  is  merely  the  one 
comprehensive  and  unchangeable  fact  of  Energy  as  the  sole 
substance,  maintaining  its  own  Being  as  Action  through 
its  own  eternal  Tension,  and  thereby  originating  the  Many, 
as  an  innumerable  multitude  of  Units  of  Energy,  out  of 
itself  as  the  One  Universal  of  Energy.  For  Energy  as 
Substance  can  itself  exist  only  under  the  absolute  con- 
dition of  all  existence,  that  it  be  the  Absolute  Unit- 
Universal  of  Being  as  Acting  (Apriori  of  Being). 

IV.  But  Energy  as  Substance  could  not  exist  without 
Reason,  Thought,  Personality,  as  its  Essence.  It  is 
Reason  as  Essence  which  determines  all  finite  relations  or 
forms,  because  it  is  itself  the  infinite  Form  of  Forms.  It 
is  Reason  as  Essence  which,  by  determining  all  forms  in 
Energy  as  Substance,  determines  the  identity  in  difference 
of  evolution  and  involution  as  Process,  that  is,  determines 
all  relations  as  objective  or  ontological  in  the  Syllogism 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


123 


of  Being.  And  it  is  Reason  as  Essence  which  reappears 
in  subjective  consciousness  as  the  Syllogism  of  Thought, 
and  in  universal  science  and  philosophy  as  the  Syllogism 
of  Knowledge.  Thus  the  Infinite  Reason  of  the  world, 
the  all-formative  Form  of  Forms,  evolves  all  its  own  Units 
as  finite  relational  forms  in  itself  as  the  Universal,  and 
exists  only  under  the  same  absolute  condition  of  all  exist- 
ence, that  it  be  the  Absolute  Unit-Universal  of  Being  as 
Thinking  (Apriori  of  Being). 

V.  As  identity  in  difference  of  substance,  essence,  and 
process,  that  is,  of  Energy  and  Reason  in  the  Syllogism 
of  Being,  the  universe  ceases  to  be  the  "unknown  and 
unknowable  Reality  "  of  one-sided  empiricism  and  equally 
one-sided  rationalism,  and  becomes  the  absolutely  know- 
able  and  partially  known  Reality  which  the  scientific 
method  is  unveiling.  The  rationality  of  the  universe  is 
luminous  in  its  concrete  Reality  as  Reason-Energy,  but 
not  out  of  it.  Suppress  the  Energy-side  of  it,  and  it  fades 
into  HegePs  apotheosized  "  relation  "  as  a  treaty  of  peace 
between  two  warring  I^s  which  are  nothing  but  two  Its. 
Suppress  the  Reason-side  of  it,  and  it  darkens  into  Spen- 
cer's Unknowable.  Unite  the  two  in  their  natural  and 
necessary  whole,  and  the  Way  of  the  World  reveals  itself 
as  the  Way  of  the  M  ind ;  for  the  method  of  Being  and  the 
method  of  Thought  are  one  and  the  same  in  the  syllogism, 
in  which  shines  out  the  perfect  oneness  of  Being  as  Acting 
and  Being  as  Thinking  in  the  Absolute  I, 

§  198.  It  is  no  false  metaphor  or  loose  analogy,  but 
literally  exact  science,  to  hold  that  the  way  of  the  world 
is  the  Syllogism  of  Being,  and  that  the  way  of  the  mind  is 
the  Syllogisms  of  Thought  and  of  Knowledge.  Taking 
the  world  just  as  it  is  in  itself  and  just  as  science  proves 
it  to  be  in  itself,  the  cosmic  process  of  evolution  through 
involution  is  a  progress  to  consequences  which  is  absolutely 
syllogistic  in  its  essential  nature,  and  reveals  itself  as  such 
in  the  endless  succession  of  generations  of  organic  forms 
as  genera,  species,  and  specimens.     This  is  evident  in  the 


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THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


phaenomena  of  life,  less  evident  but  no  less  certain  in  the 
so-called  inorganic  phaenomena  of  the  world-machine ;  for 
all  phaenomena  are  essentially  those  of  genera,  species, 
and  specimens,  that  is,  syllogistic.  The  syllogism  proves, 
as  we  have  already  said,  because  Being  syllogizes  (§  168,  5). 
In  the  life  of  the  species  as  a  series  of  generations,  the 
species  itself  alternately  contracts  and  expands  —  contracts 
into  its  fertilized  germs  and  expands  into  its  matured 
forms;  the  contraction  is  involution,  the  expansion  evo- 
lution (§  179,  3).  This  process  is  a  rhythmical  succession 
of  living  syllogisms,  unfolding  itself  forever  on  the  stage 
of  the  great  theatre  of  Being,  and  intelligible  by  all  who^ 
can  catch  the  spirit  of  the  play.  This  self-determining 
movement  of  Reason  in  Energy  according  to  the  law  of 
unit-universals,  which  is  itself  determined  by  absolute 
objective  necessity  as  the  Apriori  of  Being,  this  living 
syllogism  of  the  Course  of  Nature  as  perpetual  creation  of 
new  out  of  old  forms,  may  be  expressed  somewhat  inform- 
ally as  follows :  — 

Cosmic  Process  of  Objective  Inference. 

Every  species  is  evolved  from  and  inheres  in  its  own  genus. 

This  specimen-group,  male  and  female,  is  evolved  from  and  inheres 

in  its  own  species. 
Therefore,  this  specimen-group,  continuing  itself  in  its  offspring, 

evolves  new  specimens  as  still  evolved  from  and  inherent  in  its 

own  species  and  genus. 

This  is  the  Syllogism  of  Heredity,  at  once  logical  and 
dynamical  in  every  new  organism  as  such.  It  means  that 
the  species  evolves  the  specimens  as  facts,  and  that  the 
specimens  involve  the  species  as  idea  (Videe  creatrice). 
It  means  that  evolution  involves  involution  in  the  objec- 
tively real  world  as  at  once  fact  and  idea,  every  new  speci- 
men being  at  once  dynamical  as  caused  effect  and  logical, 
teleological,  rational,  as  fulfilled  end.  It  applies  obviously 
to  all  organic  forms  characterized  by  sex,  and  less  obvi- 
ously, but  no  less  necessarily,  to  all  sexless  forms,  since 


^ 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


125 


every  specimen,  whether  organic  or  so-called  "inorganic," 
is  derived  from  its  own  species  alone.  Everywhere  and 
always,  the  Cosmic  Reason  involves  the  ideal  form  in  the 
antecedent,  and  the  Cosmic  Energy  evolves  the  real  form 
in  the  consequent.  It  is  no  more  fact  than  it  is  syllogistic 
logic,  that  the  offspring  of  the  stallion  and  the  mare  shall 
be  always  a  colt,  never  a  puppy  or  a  pig.  Birth  consists 
in  evolving  the  idea  of  the  species,  already  involved  in 
the  fertilized  germ,  into  a  new  specimen  of  that  species  in 
the  real  world:  Reason  thinks  it  in  the  premises,  Energy 
makes  it  in  the  conclicsion.  And  this  essence  of  the  cosmic 
process,  conceived  thus  as  the  making,  creation,  or  genesis 
of  the  new  object  in  both  mechanical  and  logical  sequence 
from  old  objects,  may  be  named,  in  strictest  conformity 
with  the  principles  of  mechanical  as  well  as  of  logical 
science,  the  Objective  Inference;  for  it  shows  how  the 
Many  are  both  inferred  and  made,  that  is,  evolved  as 
objects,  out  of  the  absolute  One. 

In  a  recent  scientific  work  there  occur  these  candid 
words :  — 

"  It  has  become  more  and  more  clear  that  the  problem  of  the 
method  of  the  evolution  of  species  is  not  yet  solved.  .  .  .  The 
fact  that  these  two  older  theories  [natural  selection  and  the  La- 
marckian  factors]  leave  many  problems  unsolved  has  become  more 
appreciated,  and  to-day  naturalists  are  actively  searching  for  some- 
thing to  aid  in  the  solution  of  the  problems.  We  find  it  freely 
admitted  that  we  need  something  more  before  we  can  feel  that  we 
understand  even  the  fundamental  aspects  of  the  method  of  the 
origin  of  species,  and  we  are  beginning  to  find  references  to  the 
*  unknown  factor  *  in  evolution.  Of  course,  to  some  classes  of 
thinkers,  this  *  unknown  factor  *  will  at  once  be  said  to  be  design, 
and  the  admission  of  biologists  that  they  are  not  satisfied  with  the 
present  explanation  of  evolution  will  be  hailed  as  an  argument  for 
design.  The  naturalist  will,  of  course,  insist  that  the  unknown 
factor  will  be  found  among  natural  forces.  In  all  directions  do  we 
find  this  exploration  continuing.  ...  On  all  sides  there  is  a  feel- 
ing that  we  need  something  more  than  Darwin  discovered.  With 
the  exception  of  a  few  extremists,  no  one  appears  thoroughly  satis- 


lllil 


f|'! 


f 


126 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  Pini.OSOPHY 


fied  with  OUT  present  information  as  to  the  methods  of  evolution  or 
with  the  present  known  laws  and  forces  regulating  the  origin  of 
species.  It  is  significant  to  find  that  it  is  among  the  younger 
men  where  this  dissatisfaction  is  most  expressed,  and  among  them 
where  we  find  the  strongest  conviction  that  something  more  re- 
mains to  be  discovered.  Some  of  them  believe  this  unknown 
factor  or  factors  will  soon  be  found.  One  of  the  foremost  of 
young  experimenters,  however,  says  that  it  is  not  only  unknown 
but  unknowable."  * 

This  "  young  experimenter  "  is  indubitably  in  the  right, 
just  so  long  as  the  mechanical  evolutionism  of  Spencer, 
Haeckel,  Huxley,  and  the  rest,  remains  in  the  ascendant. 
So  long  as  Nature  is  conceived  as  mechanism  without 
teleology,  that  is,  as  Energy  without  Reason,  the  "un- 
known factor"  will  remain  "unknowable,"  too.  But,  just 
as  soon  as  men  discover  that  the  concept  of  the  world  as 
nothing  but  a  machine  bursts  like  a  Prince  Rupert's  drop 
at  the  touch  of  the  question,  "What  is  a  machine?" 
knowledge  of  the  unknown  factor  becomes  unavoidable; 
for  analysis  of  the  machine  involves  the  organism,  and 
analysis  of  the  organism  involves  the  person  as  identity 
in  difference  of  Energy  and  Reason.  The  whole  truth  of 
the  origin  of  the  species,  which  is  simply  a  specimen  to 
its  own  genus  as  a  species  of  species,  is  covered  by  the 
Syllogism  of  Heredity  as  the  Cosmic  Process,  and  the 
"unknown  factor"  is  the  Objective  Inference.  For  this 
meets  and  satisfies  all  rational  demands  of  both  parties,  as 
indicated  by  Professor  Conn.  On  the  one  hand,  it  meets 
the  demand  of  those  who  insist  on  "design,"  provided  they 
will  surrender  the  outgrown  dualistic  conception  of  the 
world  as  two  substances  divorced  from  each  other  as  matter 
and  mind,  and  accept  the  monistic  conception  of  it  as  one 
essence,  Reason,  in  one  substance.  Energy;  which  trans- 
forms external  and  miraculous  "  design  "  into  the  regular 

1  H.  W.  Conn,  The  Method  of  Evolution,  A  Review  of  the  Present 
Attitude  of  Science  toward  the  Question  of  the  Laws  and  Forces  which  have 
brought  about  the  Origin  of  Species,  1900  :  pp.  280-282. 


TUE  SYLLOGISM  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


127 


immanent  and  universal  teleology  of  One  Infinite  Life,  at 
once  dynamical  and  purposive  and  regulated  by  its  own 
exceptionless  law  as  Eternal  Reason  or  Syllogistic.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  meets  the  demand  of  the  "naturalists," 
those  who  insist  that  the  "unknown  factor"  must  be 
"  found  among  natural  forces ; "  for  the  Objective  Inference 
is  found  there,  and  nowhere  else,  as  simply  the  perpetual 
operation  and  inner  meaning  of  Nature  itself.  It  is  the 
necessary  derivation  of  every  unit  from  its  own  universal, 
which  is  no  more  true  of  the  human  being  or  the  animal 
or  the  plant  than  it  is  of  the  drop  of  water  or  the  grain  of 
sand,  as  the  least  reflection  makes  plain  to  a  quick  mind; 
for  the  drop  of  water,  as  aggregation  of  water-molecules, 
is  derived  from  its  own  species,  and  so  is  the  grain  of  sand 
as  a  mere  particle  of  comminuted  rock.  The  trouble  with 
mechanical  evolutionism  has  been  that  it  has  looked  solely 
to  external  or  "  incident  forces  "  to  explain  the  origin  of 
species,  neglecting  wholly  the  involutional  side  of  the 
evolutional  process,  and  therefore  missing  the  profound 
significance  of  heredity  as  the  bequeathed  and  inherited 
idea  of  the  species,  involved  in  the  germ  and  evolved  in 
the  adult.  This  neglect  necessitates  an  "  unknown  factor," 
which  must  be  likewise  "unknowable"  until  the  neglect 
itself  ceases  with  the  coming  of  a  deeper  insight.  Expand 
the  narrow  notion  of  the  world  as  mere  machine  into  the 
all-comprehensive  notion  of  the  world  as  All-Person,  and 
instantly  the  "unknown  factor"  becomes  the  Syllogism  of 
Heredity  as  the  perfectly  intelligible  Objective  Inference. 

§  199.  Viewed  thus  as  the  Syllogism  of  Heredity  or 
Objective  Inference,  the  cosmic  process  reveals  itself  as 
that  unchangeable  and  eternal  "course  of  Nature  "  which  is 
at  bottom  the  Course  of  Spirit,  the  identity  in  difference  of 
dynamism  and  teleology,  the  self-activity  of  Being  as  both 
Doing  and  Thinking,  the  unresting  Power  of  the  Universe 
which  acts  only  as  it  is  guided  to  the  eternal  End  of  the 
Universe  by  the  immanent  Reason  of  the  Universe,  — in  a 
word,  identity  in  difference  of  Energy  and  Reason,  Nature 


i  '• 


II  il 

II 


m 


w 


128 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


and  Spirit,  in  the  Absolute  I.  From  this  it  follows  of 
necessity  that  in  man,  product  and  child  of  the  Universe, 
the  Syllogism  of  Being  which  eternally  antedates  him  is 
the  only  possible  source  and  norm  of  his  new-born  Syllo- 
gism of  Thought,  —  that  the  Objective  Inference  of  the 
World  is  the  only  possible  law  of  the  Subjective  Inference 
in  logic,  science,  philosophy,  as  the  Syllogism  of  Human 
Knowledge.  But  this  general  deduction  of  epistemology 
from  ontology  must  remain  more  or  less  vague  and  uncon- 
vincing until  the  Subjective  Inference  is  compared  directly 
with  the  Objective  Inference,  and  thus  the  absolute  one- 
ness of  their  constitution  and  governing  principle  is  made 
plain.     Let  us  make  the  comparison. 

Since  everything  exists  as  a  specimen  in  itself  (toSc  ti, 
Ding  an  sich),  that  is,  as  only  one  specimen  in  only  one 
species  in  only  one  genus  (Syllogism  of  Being),  —  and 
since  to  know  it  at  all  must  be  to  know  it  syllogistically 
as  it  is  in  itself  (Syllogism  of  Knowledge),  —  it  follows 
that  every  possible  syllogism  of  thought  as  knowledge, 
that  is,  every  particular  cognition  or  cognitive  judgment, 
may  be  reduced  to  this  universal  form  of  all  reasoning:  — 

Knowing  Process  of  Subjective  Inference. 

Every  species  is  conceived  as  evolved  from  and  inherent  in  its 

own  genus. 
This  specimen  or  specimen-group  is  conceived  as  evolved  from  and 

inherent  in  its  own  species. 
Therefore,  this  specimen  or  specimen-group,  continuing  itself  in  its 

consequences,  is  conceived  as  evolving  new  cognitions  which  are 

still  evolved  from  and  inherent  in  its  own  species  and  genus. 

This  is  the  Syllogism  of  Knowledge  in  its  evolutional 
form,  that  is,  the  Syllogism  of  Epistemological  Heredity, 
as  determined  by  the  law  of  unit-universals  and  the  prin- 
ciple of  inherence,  and  not  as  misconceived  by  the  Aris- 
totelian Paradox  and  the  principle  of  mere  subsumption 
(§  §  124-127).  Its  most  perfect  form  is  the  scientific  method 
in  general,  as  contrasted  with  the  speculative  or  dialectical 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


129 


i 


method  of  Hegel  (see  Chapter  XVII.).  It  is  the  necessary 
origin  of  every  particular  cognition  because  it  is  determined 
by  the  necessary  origin  of  every  particular  existence,  which 
continues  itself  in  its  continued  effect  on  the  perceptivity 
of  the  subject  in  continued  observation.  The  law  of  unit- 
universals  as  genus,  species,  and  specimen,  or  the  Apriori 
of  Being,  is  what  absolutely  determines  the  form  of  the 
syllogism  itself  and  imparts  to  it  all  its  apodeictic  neces- 
sity; the  untruth  of  that  law,  if  it  were  demonstrable, 
would  be  the  logical  abolition  of  logic  through  destruction 
of  the  syllogism  as  its  necessary  form. 

Now  the  general  relations  of  the  concepts  of  genus, 
species,  and  specimen,  as  involved  in  the  premises  of  the 
Syllogism  of  Knowledge,  are  not  determined  there  by  the 
"  spontaneous  "  understanding  of  the  universalized  human 
subject  that  thinks  it,  although  Kant  in  that  way  subjec- 
tifies all  relations  in  his  cardinal  doctrine  of  "  synthesis  a 
priori,"  on  which  he  founds  his  whole  Erkenntnisstheorie. 

The  universal  conditions  or  forms  of  existence  itself  as 
genera,  species,  specimens,  that  is,  as  individual  things  in 
universal  kinds,  are  what  they  are  simply  because  they 
could  not  be  otherwise:  the  one  substance  or  Energy  of 
the  World  can  itself  exist  only  as  One  in  Many  and  Many 
in  One,  and  that  means  individual  things  in  universal  kinds 
(§  197).  The  whole  structure  of  the  syllogism  presupposes 
these  general  relations.  What  the  individual  human  sub- 
ject contributes  to  the  premises  of  the  Syllogism  of  Knowl- 
edge is  not  the  relations  of  genus,  species,  and  specimen 
in  general  (since  without  these  as  absolute  antecedent  con- 
ditions the  syllogistic  form  itself  would  be  impossible), 
but  only  in  each  case  the  "this,"  by  which  these  general 
relations  are  perceived  and  predicated  in  the  premises  as 
particular  judgments  by  the  perceptive  understanding.  That 
is,  the  inclusion  of  the  concept  of  "  this  "  particular  species 
by  the  concept  of  "  this "  particular  genus  is  simply  per- 
ceived and  predicated  by  the  understanding  in  immediate 
experience  or  intuition  of  them  as  "this"  and  "this,"  and 

VOL.    II.  —  9 


130 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


131 


i\ 


i  I 


ii 


so  likewise  the  inclusion  of  the  percept  of  "  this  "  particu- 
lar specimen  or  specimen-group  in  the  concept  of  "  this " 
particular  species  j  for  these  inclusions  are  simply  expressed 
or  asserted,  not  proved  or  inferred,  in  the  premises.  But 
the  inclusion  of  the  percept  of  "this "  particular  specimen 
or  specimen-group  in  the  concept  of  "  this  "  particular  genus 
is  not  expressed  or  asserted  at  all  in  the  premises,  but  only- 
implied  or  involved  (Apriori  of  Being) ;  and  judgment  of 
this  last  inclusion  is  reached,  not  by  the  intuitive  or  per- 
ceptive, but  by  the  discursive  or  inferring  understanding. 

Here  we  have  quite  another  element,  over  and  above  the 
simple  perceptions  of  the  intuitive  understanding:  to  wit, 
the  making  or  drawing  of  the  inference  in  the  conclusion. 
If  the  simple  perceiving  is  mainly  (not  wholly)  receptivity, 
the  inferring,  the  making  or  drawing  of  the  inference,  is 
not  only  activity,  but  self-activity ;  for  the  merely  implied 
or  involved  relation  will  never  express,  assert,  or  evolve 
itself  in  the  conclusion,  but  will  remain  merely  implied  or 
involved  until  the  understanding  actively  draws  the  infer- 
ence and  asserts  it  in  a  judgment.  In  other  words,  the 
understanding  is  mainly  receptive  in  the  premises,  as 
intellectually  intuitive  of  the  relations  expressed,  although 
active  even  here  as  predicating  or  judging;  but  it  is  wholly 
active  in  the  conclusion,  as  intellectually  developing,  judg- 
ing, and  asserting  a  relation  which  is  before  only  implied. 
The  two  judgments  beget  a  third  judgment.  This  is  a  true 
evolution,  for  in  it  the  syllogism  as  a  whole,  that  is,  the 
Subjective  Inference,  evolves  the  ideal  form  involved  in 
the  premises  into  the  real  form  of  the  conclusion  as  a  new 
act,  a  new  specimen,  a  new  judgment ;  and  it  is  wrought, 
not  by  the  understanding  as  receptivity  alone,  but  by  the 
understanding  as  both  receptivity  and  self-activity,  too. 
But  intellectual  self-activity  is  just  as  much  a  real  form 
of  Energy  as  mechanical  causality.  In  other  words,  the 
understanding  manifests  itself  in  the  syllogism  as  both 
Reason  and  Energy  —  Reason  as  comprehending  the  prem- 
ises, and  Energy  or  Self -Activity  as  drawing  the  inference 


V 


t) 


I 


\ 


and  creating  the  conclusion  as  a  new  judgment,  involved 
but  not  evolved  in  the  premises  alone.  In  this  way  mind 
proves  itself  to  be  as  real  as  matter:  matter  is  a  system 
of  mechanical  energies,  and  mind  is  a  system  of  spiritual 
energies,  and  one  is  just  as  active  as  the  other.  Moreover, 
the  Subjective  Inference  obeys  the  same  law  of  evolution 
which  we  saw  at  work  in  the  Objective  Inference;  for  it 
not  only  evolves  an  ideal  form  in  the  premises  into  a  new 
real  form  in  the  conclusion,  but  it  also  does  this  in  precisely 
the  same  way  —  Reason  thinks  it  in  the  premises,  Energy 
makes  it  in  the  conclusion.  Thus  the  Objective  Inference 
repeats  and  reproduces  itself  in  the  Subjective  Infereuce, 
the  Syllogism  of  Being  in  the  Syllogism  of  Knowledge, 
the  Cosmic  Process  in  the  Knowing  Process;  all  these  are 
one  and  the  same  continuous  method  so  far  as  they  all  are 
identity  in  difference  of  evolution  and  involution,  and 
manifest  the  identity  in  difference  of  Energy  and  Reason, 
Substance  and  Essence,  not  only  in  the  Absolute  I  as  the 
All-Person,  but  just  as  much  in  each  of  us  as  finite  x)erson, 
and  for  the  same  reason  —  it  cannot  be  otherwise. 


t' 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


133 


I  I 


i\ 


III 


\\\ 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

§  200.  The  significance  of  these  results  as  principles  is 
profound.  Benson  thinks  or  involves  the  ideal  form  in  the 
premises  ;  Energy  makes  or  evolves  the  real  form  in  the  con- 
elusion.  That  is  the  law  of  evolution  in  the  world  of 
reality,  as  the  Objective  Inference  or  Syllogism  of  Being ; 
it  is  the  law  of  evolution  in  the  world  of  ideality,  as  the 
Subjective  Inference  or  Syllogism  of  Knowledge.  It  in- 
volves the  identity  in  difference  of  substance  and  essence, 
or  Energy  and  Keason,  (1)  in  the  cosmic  process  or  way  of 
the  world,  and  (2)  in  the  knowing  process  or  way  of  the 
mind.  It  is  confirmation  of  the  general  deduction  of  epis- 
temology  from  ontology  by  tlie  proposed  and  now  executed 
comparison  of  the  Objective  Inference  and  the  Subjective 
Inference,  which  shows  that  these  are  absolutely  one  in 
their  syllogistic  constitution  and  in  their  governing  princi- 
ple :  namely,  that  in  both  Reason  involves  the  new  speci- 
men ideally  in  the  antecedent  and  Energy  evolves  it  really 
in  the  consequent.  This  is  specific  deduction  of  the  Syllo- 
gism of  Knowledge  from  the  Syllogism  of  Being,  which, 
until  it  is  shown  to  be  fallacious,  justifies  the  acceptance 
of  a  theory  of  knowledge  which  is  founded,  not,  like  Kant's, 
on  "  synthesis  a  joHon  "  and  the  exclusive  subjectivity  of 
relations  in  a  merely  phaenomenal  world,  but  on  the  law  of 
unit-universals  and  the  objectivity  of  relations  in  a  world 
which  is  both  phaenomenal  and  noumenal. 

§  201.  The  new  epistemology  of  objectivism  can  be  fully 
understood  only  in  direct  comparison  with  the  Kantian 
epistemology  of  subjectivism.  The  latter  still  remains  the 
foundation  of  unmodernized  "  modern  philosophy,"  and  is 


inconsiderately  taken  for  granted  by  many  masters  of 
modern  science  who,  like  Huxley,  stand  bewildered  by  the 
plausibilities  of  Berkeley,  Hume,  and  Kant.  The  clew  of 
exit  from  this  labyrinth  of  confusion  is  comprehension  of 
the  Aristotelian  Paradox,  the  Law  of  Unit-Universals,  and 
their  mutual  relation.  We  have  now  reached  the  point 
where  a  searching  comparison  of  the  two  epistemologies 
may  be  most  advantageously  made. 

§  202.  That  the  Aristotelian  Paradox  shaped  and  deter- 
mined the  entire  Kantian  epistemology  is  plain  beyond  the 
possibility  of  a  reasonable  doubt.  It  may  be  nowhere  ex- 
plicitly advanced  in  the  form  of  a  general  theory  of  univer- 
sal as  such,  independent  of  particular  applications  of  it; 
yet  that  Kant,  with  one  important  modification,  thought 
the  relation  of  universal  and  individual  substantially  as 
Aristotle  thought  it,  is  a  fact  wrought  into  the  very  warp 
and  woof  of  his  system  as  a  whole.  This  has  been  already 
made  abundantly  clear  in  sections  56-57,  60,  70-72,  96-97 ; 
but  it  may  be  made  clearer  still. 

The  core  of  Aristotelianism,  as  every  student  knows,  is 
contained  in  the  distinction  of  matter  and  form.  It  is  no 
less  the  core  of  Kantianism,  as  Kant  himself  explicitly 
declares :  "  Matter  and  Form  —  these  are  two  concepts 
which  lie  at  the  bottom  of  all  other  reflection,  so  profoundly 
and  inseparably  are  they  bound  up  with  every  use  of  the  un- 
derstanding. The  first  means  the  determinable  in  general, 
the  second  its  determination  —  both  in  the  transcendental 
understanding,  since  abstraction  is  made  from  every  differ- 
ence in  that  which  is  given,  and  from  the  mode  in  which  it 
is  determined."^  Here,  in  the  suppression  of  every  indi- 
vidual difference  and  of  every  specific  determination,  in 
order  to  arrive  at  the  concept  of  Matter  as  "  the  determin- 
able in  general,"  we  see  illustrated  Kant's  entire  agreement 
with  Aristotle  in  rejection  of  the  individual  difference  as 
such,  in  order  to  arrive  at  the  concept  of  the  pure  universal, 
TO  cISos  TO  ivov.  The  modification  which  Kant  introduces  is 
1  Kritik  tier  reiueu  Veruunft,  Werke,  III.  228. 


i^ 


134 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  riilLOSOPHY 


tlie  change  from  Greek  realism  to  German  idealism  or  con- 
ceptualism;  for,  while  Aristotle  finds  his  Matter  in  the 
sphere  of  "Being  as  Being,"  that  is,  in  objective  existence 
as  vXrj  in  the  toSc  rt,  Kant  finds  it  only  in  the  sphere  of 
Thought,  that  is,  in  subjective  existence  as  (1)  that  which 
objectively  corresponds  to  sensation,  but  remains  unknown 
as  the  IHfif/  an  sich,  and  (2)  sensation  itself  in  the  ErscheU 
nuny,  in  which,  however,  sensation  is  the  still  unknown 
matter  and  nothing  is  known  but  the  form  as  pure  concept 
a  priori.  Both  Aristotle  and  Kant  know  nothing  but  cZSos 
in  the  toSc  rt  as  ctSos  +  vXrj. 

In  strict  conformity  with  these  "  two  concepts  of  Matter 
and  Form,"  Kant  gives  us  a  practical  illustration  of  his 
agreement  with  Aristotle  in  his  doctrine  of  "  consciousness 
in  general."  This  he  conceives  by  "  abstracting  from  every 
difference  in  that  which  is  given  [in  this  case  the  empirical 
consciousness],  and  from  the  mode  in  which  it  is  deter- 
mined." That  is,  to  think  the  purely  universal  or  rational 
I,  he  drops  everything  that  distinguishes  the  individual  or 
empirical  I  from  it,  and  also  everything  that  distinguishes 
one  empirical  I  from  another.  That  is.  My -Pure-Self  is 
absolutely  identical  with  Your-Pure-Self :  The-Fure-Self 
contains  neither  my  nor  ymir,  but  only  that  which  is  indis- 
tinguishable and  common  alike  to  you  and  me.  Here,  then, 
unmistakably  reappears  Aristotle^s  eternal  and  impersonal 
vovs,  which  neither  Aristotle  nor  Kant  can  combine  con- 
ceptually with  the  empirical  person,  as  Zeller  proved  with 
regard  to  the  former  (§  77)  ;  for  the  vo\s  contains  no  ground 
of  individual  difference  and  no  ground  of  plurality  what- 
ever, but  is  indivisibly  and  unchangeably  one.  Yet,  in  order 
to  know  you  and  r/ie,  as  (1)  one  in  our  common  essence  and 
(2)  two  in  our  individual  differences,  the  individual  differ- 
ences must  be  just  as  knowable  as  the  common  essence.  In 
other  words,  if  you  and  I  know  ourselves  as  two,  the  Aris- 
totelian Paradox,  in  Kant  no  less  than  in  Aristotle  himself, 
must  give  way  to  the  Law  of  Unit-Universals. 

§  203.   But  let  us  now  consider  Kant's  ground-plan  as 


THE   SYLLOGISM  OF  rHILOSOPITY 


135 


outlined  by  himself  in  the  form  of  his  all-essential  defini- 
tions. In  the  very  first  section  of  the  Transcendental 
^Esthetic,  he  founds  his  primordial  distinction  of  sensibility 
and  understanding,  and  with  it  his  whole  philosophy,  on 
the  fundamental  distinction  of  Form  and  Matter  as  just 
explained.     He  says:  — 

"  Intuition  takes  place  so  far  only  as  an  object  is  given  to  us. 
This,  however,  is  not  possible,  at  least  for  us  human  beings,  unless 
the  object  affects  the  mind  in  a  definite  manner.  .  .  The  effect  of 
an  object  on  the  representative  faculty,  so  far  as  we  are  affected 
by  it,  is  called  xensation.  The  intuition  which  relates  to  an  object 
through  sensation  is  called  empirical.  The  unformed  object  of  an 
empirical  intuition  is  called  phaenomenon.  That  in  the  phaenome- 
non  which  corresponds  to  the  sensation  I  call  its  Matter;  but  that 
which  causes  that  the  manifold  content  of  the  phaenomenon  can 
be  disposed  in  definite  relations  I  call  the  Form  of  the  phaenome- 
non. That,  however,  in  which  sensations  simply  assume  order 
and  can  be  set  in  a  definite  form  cannot  be  itself  sensation. 
Consequently,  while  the  Matter  of  all  phaenomena  is  given  to  us 
solely  a  posteriori^  their  Form  must  lie  ready  for  them  as  a  whole 
in  the  mind  a  priori,  and  for  this  reason  can  be  treated  in  separa- 
tion from  all  sensation."  ^ 

In  these  fundamental  definitions  at  the  very  outset  of 
his  great  work,  as  all-determinative  as  those  of  Spinoza's 
Ethica,  Kant  determines  its  character  beforehand  by 
fundamental  positions,  as  follows :  — 

I.  Every  cognition  {Erkenntniss)  must  relate  to  its 
immediate  object  (Geyenstand)  through  intuition  (An- 
schauung), 

II.  Intuition  is  possible  to  us  so  far  only  as  the  object  is 
given  to  us  a  posteriori.  This  object  is  the  "thing  in 
itself,"  the  "non-sensuous  cause  of  our  representations," 
the  "transcendental  object,"  —  not  the  "object  of  ex- 
perience 


»  a 


»  Werke,  III :  65,  56. 

^  Cf.  Werke,  III:  349.  Holder  notes  the  general  anibignity  of  Kant's 
terminology :  **  Vor  allem  gilt  dies  vom  Bogriff  <les  Gegeiistandcs.  Die 
Gegenstando,  welcho  mich  afficiren  und  dadurch  meinc  Enipfindungon  be- 


1, 


:l| 


t 


y 


1)11 


13G 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


III.  The  object  is  given  to  us  so  far  only  as  it  affects 
the  subject  definitely  (das  Gemiith  aufgewisse  Weise  afficire) 
—  that  is,  given  to  us  only  in  its  effect, 

IV.  This  effect  of  the  object  on  the  subject  (its  Wirkung 
aufdie  Vorstellungsfdhigkeit)  is  sensation  {Empfindung). 

V.  The  object  itself,  after  it  has  thus  determined  the 
subject  to  sensation,  but  before  the  sensation  and  intuition 
are  formed  by  the  subject,  is  the  Matter  of  the  phaenomenon, 
expressly  defined  as  the  undetermined  or  unformed  object 
of  an  empirical  intuition  (der  unbestlmmte  Gegenstand  einer 
empirischen  Anschauung),  The  Matter  of  the  phaenome- 
non (die  Materie  der  Erscheinung)  is,  not  the  sensation, 
but  that  "  in  the  phaenomenon  "  which  corresponds  to  the 
sensation  (da^,  ivas  der  Empfindung  correspondlrt) ;  and  this 
is  the  manifold  content,  not  of  the  sensation,  but  of  the 
phaenomenon  itself  (das  Mannigfaltige  der  Erscheinung), 
This  Matter  of  the  phaenomenon,  however,  possesses  no 
originally  immanent  Form  of  its  own ;  the  phaenomenon  in 
itself  is  absolutely  formless,  an  originally  unformed  or 
undetermined  object  of  "blind  "  empirical  intuition  alone.* 
Thus  the  object  as  such,  after  it  has  affected  the  subject  to 
sensation,  but  before  it  is  formed  by  the  subject  in  cogni- 
tion, is  necessarily  unknowable,  because  it  is  Matter  without 
Form.    This  result  is  in  complete  accordance  with  Aristotle, 

wirken,  sind  wirkliche  Dinge  im  gewohnlichen  Sinne  (von  Kant  sonst 
*  Dinge  an  sicb '  genannt),  es  kommt  ihnen  reale,  von  meinen  Vorstel- 
lungen  unterschiedene,  nicht  erst  durch  meine  Vorstellungsthatigkeit 
gesetzte  Existenz  zu  ;  dagegen  die  Gegenstande,  die  mir  gegeben  sind  (von 
Kant  auch  Objecte  genannt,  welcher  Ausdruck  allerdings  vereinzelt  auch 
von  den  Dingen  an  sich  vorkommt),  sind  mit  meinen  Amchauungen, 
raeinen  anschaulichen  Vorstellungen  identisch."  (A.  Holder,  Darstellung 
der  Kantischen  Erkenntnisstheorie,  1873,  S.  7.)  Kant  distinctly  declares, 
in  the  passage  just  referred  to,  that  the  "transcendental  object"  is 
** given,"  not  in  experience,  but  '*hef(yre  all  experience  "  (dass  es  vor  aller 
Erfahrung  an  sich  selbst  gegeben  sei) ;  because,  of  course,  the  condition  as 
cause  is  necessarily  given  in  and  with  the  conditioned  m  effect, 

*  **  Gedanken  ohne  Inhalt  sind  leer,  Anschauungen  ohne  Begriffe  sind 
blind."    (Werke,  III.  82.) 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


137 


who   taught  that   matter   in   itself  is  both  formless   and 

unknowable  (cISo?  ovk  c^ct  rj  vX-q  —  yj  vXrj  ayvaxTTos  Kaff  avTiJv). 

VI.  The  phaenomenon  or  unformed  object  of  empirical 
intuition,  after  it  has  determined  the  subject  to  sensation 
a  posteriori  (Sinnlichkeit  =  Eeceptivitdt  der  Eindi-ilcke),  and 
after  the  sensation  and  intuition  thus  determined  in  the 
subject  ( Vorstellung  als  blose  Bestimmung  des  GemUths)  have 
been  elaborated  or  thought  by  the  understanding  a  2)riori 
( Verstand  =  Spotaneitdt  der  Begrijfe),  becomes  now  the 
formed  object  of  experience  (  Gegenstand  der  Erfahrimg)  or 
of  sensuous  cognition  (sinnliche  Erke7intniss),  But  in  this 
process,  be  it  noted,  a  new  Matter  has  been  illicitly  substi- 
tuted, and  the  object,  therefore,  is  no  longer  the  same 
object.  The  Matter  of  the  unformed  object  was  "  that  in  the 
phaenomenon  which  corresponds  to  sensation,"  the  "  mani- 
fold content  of  the  phaenomenon  "  as  the  determinant  of 
sensation ;  but  the  Matter  of  the  fonned  object  is  the  sensa- 
tion itself,*  the  manifold  content  of  the  sensibility  as  itself 
sole  object  of  the  understanding.*  If  this  (evidently  un- 
conscious) substitution  of  one  object  for  another  object  be 
allowed,  it  destroys  the  whole  transcendental  theory  of 
knowledge,  but  it  at  least  heals  the  violent  separation  of 
Matter  and  Form  (xtopurfioq)  which  was  previously  attempted 
in  attributing  the  Matter  to  the  object  alone  and  the  Form 
to  the  subject  alone  ;  the  formed  object  is  at  least  brought 
entirely  within  the  subject,  and  becomes  knowable  because 
it  is  now  Form  in  Matter  as  Begriff  in  Anschauung,  This 
last  result  accords  fully,  although  only  with  a  subjective 

^  "  Man  kann  die  letztere  [d.  h.  die  Empfindung]  die  Materie  der  sinn- 
lichen  Erkenntniss  nennen."    (Werke,  III.  81.) 

"  "Die  Sinnlichkeit,  dem  Verstande  untergelegt,  als  das  Object,  woiauf 
dieser  seine  Function  anwendet,  ist  der  Quell  realer  Erkenntnisse.  Eben 
dieselbe  aber,  so  fern  sie  auf  die  Verstandeshandlung  selbst  einfliesst  und 
ihn  zuni  Urtheilen  bestimmt,  ist  der  Grund  des  Irrthurns."  (Werke,  HI. 
245,  footnote. )  By  this  canon,  however,  real  error,  as  distinguished  from 
merely  logical  error,  ia  no  lonrfer  ])ossible.  Sensation  must  exercise  no 
influence  on  the  cognition,  which  must  be  the  exclusive  work  of  the  pure 
understand!  lit,' ;  if  this  obtys  its  own  laws,  error  is  impossible. 


I' 


llll  ' 


138 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


interpretation,    with   Aristotle's  doctrine  that  nothing  is 
knowable  except  tlie  form  in  the  matter  (to  cTSos  to  iv6v). 

These  fundamental  positions  may  be  concisely  expressed 
in  the  following  table :  — 

TABLE  IV 

Critical  Idealism:  Object  of  Knowledge. 

I.     Phaenomenon  as  Matter  without  Form  (das  Gegebene)  : 

Unformed  and  Unknoton  Object  of  Empirical  Intuition. 

i.  Its  Matter  =  That  in  the  Object  which  Corresponds  to  Sensa- 
tion =  Manifold  Content  of  the  Object  in  Itself  {Ding  an 
sich). 

ii.   Its  Form  =  0. 
iii.    Its  Kffect  in  the  Subject  =  Sensation  a  posteriori. 

n.     Phaenomenon  as  Form  in  Matter  (das  Gedachte)  : 
Farmed  and  Known  Object  of  Experience. 

Its  Matter  =  Not  That  in  the  Object  which  Corresponds  to 
Sensation,  but  =  Manifold  Content  of  the  Sensation  in  Itself. 

Its  Form  =  That  in  the  Sensation  which  Orders  its  Content 
=  Pure  Forms  of  the  Sensibility  plus  Pure  Forms  of  the 
Understanding  =  pure  €idos  in  the  Sensation  as  fldos  +  vXiy. 

Its  Effect  in  the  Subject  =  Formed  Empirical  Intuition  =  Real 
Cognition. 


1. 


11. 


lU. 


III.    Self-Refutation  of  Critical  Idealism. 

These  determinations  work  a  total  abolition  of  the  Heal 
Olrject.  The  illicit  substitution  of  One  Matter  for  Another 
Matter  is  the  arbitrary  creation  of  Another  Object.  But 
neither  as  one  matter  without  form  nor  as  form  in  another 
matter  can  the  Real  Object  be  known  at  all:  the  mere 
separation  of  its  form  and  matter  cannot  create  another 
matter.  Hence  Critical  Idealism  remains  absolutely  with- 
out a  Real  Object  of  Knowledge  and  is  mere  confusion  of 
thought,  so  long  as  it  hesitates  to  make  both  Sensation  and 
Cognition  equally  « spontaneous  "  or  equally  a  priori  in 
one  and  the  same  individual  subject  (solipsism). 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


139 


§  204.  «  All  phaenoraena,"  says  Kuno  Fischer,  the  faithful  and 
conscientious  interpreter  of  Kant,  "are,  as  is  evident  from  the 
manner  of  their  origination,  nothing  but  representations  in  us, 
not  contingent  and  voluntary,  but  necessary  and  universally  valid, 
which  are  explained  by  the  constitution  and  laws  of  our  reason. 
This  complete  ideality  of  all  phaenoraena  is  the  discovery  and  the 
theme  of  transcendental  idealism,  with  the  system  of  which  the 
Kantian  Criticism  must  stand  or  fall. 

"There  are  two  conceivable  cases  for  metaphysic,  that  is,  for 
our  universal  and  necessary  knowledge  of  things  :  either  our  knowl- 
edge is  conformed  to  the  objects,  or  these  are  conformed  to  that. 
In  the  first  case,  metaphysic  is  impossible  ;i  therefore,  all  its  pre- 
vious undertakings  have  been  in  vain,  for  they  rested  on  the  as- 
sumption that  our  knowledge  is  conformed  to  the  things.  In  the 
second  case  it  is  possible,  but  must  be  grounded  anew.  Now  the 
objects  cannot  conform  to  our  knowledge,  unless  they  depend  on 
the  conditions  and  organiaation  of  our  reason  —  unless,  that  is, 
their  origin  lies  in  the  factors  of  reason,  or,  what  means  the  same 
thing,  unless  they  are  phaenomena  and  not  things  in  themselves. 
Consequently,  the  Critique  of  Reason  is  the  doctrine  of  the  origi- 
nation of  objects,  or  phaenomena,  out  of  the  material  and  formal 
conditions  contained  in  our  reason  :  this  doctrine  is  called  tran- 
scendental or  critical  idealism.  *  The  situation  here,'  says  Kant, 
« is  just  as  it  was  with  the  first  thought  of  Copernicus,  who,  when 
he  could  not  get  on  with  the  explanation  of  the  heavenly  motions 
on  the  assumption  that  the  whole  starry  host  revolved  about  the 
beholder,  tried  whether  he  might  not  succeed  better  on  the  assump- 
tion that  the  beholder  revolves  and  the  stars  remain  at  rest.'  "  2 

*  This  is  true,  if  "  our  universal  and  necessary  knowledge  of  things  "  is, 
as  Kant  teaches,  nothing  but  the  subjective  work  or  transcendental  syn- 
thesis of  the  pure  a  priori  consciousness-in -general.  But  it  is  not  true,  if 
this  knowledge  is  simply  knowledge  of  the  universal  and  necessary  rela- 
tions objectively  determined  in  things  themselves  by  the  aboriginal  cmdi- 
tims  of  existence,  or  Apriori  of  Being  (§§  89-98).  In  the  latter  case,  what 
is  impossible  is  not  metaphysic,  as  scientific  philosophy  of  the  real,  but 
transcendental  idealism,  as  unscientific  philosophy  of  the  merely  ideal. 
The  Kantian  theory  of  knowledge  rests  on  the  assuniption  that  relations 
(  FerhiUp/ung,  Ziisammenhang,  etc.)  have  no  existence  in  the  nature  of 
things,  independently  of  our  existence  and  experience,  but  exist  only  as 
an  absolute  creation  ex  wi/w7o  — that  our  Vemunft  can  evoke  cosmos  out 
of  chaos  by  a  simple  y?rt<  hue. 

2  Geschichte  der  neuern  Philosophic,  III.  568.     Copernicus  abandoned 


4 


*l 


,  I 


J't' 


140 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


§  205.  Kant's  theory  of  the  origination  of  the  object  of 
experience,  then,  is  confessedly  the  kernel  of  the  whole 
Critical  Philosophy.  It  was  an  attempt  to  discover  all 
the  conditions  of  the  object,  all  its  matter  as  well  as  all  its 
form,  entirely  within  the  constitution  of  the  universal 
human  mind.  It  was  a  large  undertaking.  Success  in  it 
demanded  a  remorseless  adherence  to  logic  for  which  even 
Kant  lacked  the  nerve. 

Manifestly,  if  the  matter  as  well  as  the  form  of  the 
object  of  experience  is  to  be  derived  from  the  subject  a 
priori,  then  not  only  the  origin  of  concepts,  but  also  the 
origin  of  sensations,  must  be  discovered  there.  The  origin 
of  concepts  is  provided  for  in  Kant's  principle  of  synthesis 
a  priori,  that  is,  of  the  exclusively  subjective  origin  of 
relations:  quantity,  quality,  relation,  and  modalit}'',  with 
their  subdivisions,  constitute  his  table  of  the  pure  concepts 
a  priori,  and  their  absolute  origin  is  the  spontaneous 
activity  (Spontaneitat  der  Begriffe)  or  transcendental  syn- 
thesis ( Verbindung  *)  of  the  pure  understanding,  independ- 

the  geocentric  for  the  heliocentric  position  ;  Kant  abandoned  the  objective 
for  the  subjective  position,  the  heliocentric  for  the  geocentric.  Has  it 
occurred  to  no  one  that  Kant  retreated  from  Copernicus  to  Ptolemy? 

^  **  Unter  alien  Vorstellungen  die  Verbindung  [i.  e.  relation]  die  einzige 
ist,  die  nicht  durch  Objecte  gegeben.  sondern  nur  vom  Subjecte  selbst 
verrichtet  werden  kann,  weil  sie  ein  Actus  seiner  Selbstthatigkeit  ist." 
(Kr.  d.  r.  V.,  Werke,  IH.  114,  115.)  Windelband  admirably  states  this 
principle  of  relation  or  synthesis  :  **  In  dieser  Formulirung  kam  die  Ein- 
sicht  zur  Geltung,  welche  Kant  im  Laufe  seiner  kritischen  Entwicklung 
von  dera  Wesen  der  Vernunftthatigkeit  gewonnon  hatte :  sie  ist  Synthe- 
sis, d.  h.  Vereinheitlichung  einer  Mannigfalrigkeit.  Dieser  BegrifT  der 
Synthesis  ist  etwas  Neues,  was  die  Kritik  von  der  Inaugural-dissertation 
trennt :  in  ihm  fand  Kant  das  Gemeinsame  zwischen  den  Formen  der  Sinn- 
lichkeit  und  denjenigen  des  Verstandes,  welche  in  der  Darstellung  von 
1770  nach  den  Merkmalen  der  Receptivitat  und  der  Spontaneitat  sich 
ganzlich  von  einander  sondern  soUten.  Es  zeigte  sich  nun,  dass  die  Syn- 
thesis der  theoretischen  Vemunft  in  drei  Stufen  sich  vollzieht :  die  Ver- 
kniipfung  der  Erapfindungen  zu  Anschauungen  geschieht  in  den  Formen 
von  Raum  und  Zeit,  die  Verkniipfung  der  Anschauungen  zur  Erfahrung 
der  naturiichen  Wirklichkeit  geschieht  durch  VerstandesbegrifTe,  die  Ver- 
kniipfung der   Erfahrungsurtheile  zu  metaphysischen  Erkenntnissen  ge- 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


141 


ently  of  all  experience.  But  the  absolute  or  ultimate 
origin  of  sensations  is  left  by  Kant  wholly  unprovided 
for,  except  by  a  reference  to  causative  yet  unknowable 
things-in-theraselves,  of  which  nothing  at  all  can  be 
affirmed  except  that  they  are  the  limit  of  human  knowledge 
{Grenzhegrijf),  Sensations,  indeed,  are  possible  only 
under  the  ^^  a  priori  forms  of  sensibility,"  Space  and  Time; 
but  Space  and  Time  do  not  in  the  least  explain  their  actual 
origin.  Nothing  short  of  a  doctrine  of  the  "  spontaneit}'^  of 
sensations,"  parallel  to  his  doctrine  of  the  "  spontaneity 
of  concepts,"  would  have  enabled  Kant  to  explain  their 
actual  origin  by  the  spontaneous  activity  or  transcendental 
productivity  of  the  sensibility  itself,  and  thereby  to  dis- 
cover the  material  conditions  of  experience  entirely  within 
the  constitution  of  the  universal  human  mind.  Instead  of 
this  indispensable  parallel    doctrine,  Kant   teaches  that 

schieht  durch  allgemeine  Principien,  welche  Kant  Ideen  nennt.  Diese  drei 
Stufen  der  Erkenntnissthatigkeit  entwickeln  sich  also  als  verschiedene  For- 
men der  Synthesis,  von  denen  jede  hiihere  die  niedere  zu  ihrem  Inhalte 
hat."  (W.  Windelband,  Geschichte  der  Philosophic,  1892 ;  423,  424).  Hoi- 
der  further  explains  Synthesis  as  the  action  of  the  schematizing  imagina- 
tion :  **  Doch  sehen  wir  dieser  Ableitung  der  Kategoricn  niiher  zu,  so  ist 
es  ein  weiterer,  fiir  uns  neuer  Begriff,  welcher  hier  in  die  Mitte  geschoben 
wird,  der  der  Einbildungskraft.  Sie  erscheint  als  ein  Bindeglied  zwischen 
Sinnlichkeit  und  Verstand,  von  denen  als  einziges  Erkenntnissvermogen 
wir  bis  jetzt  gehort  haben.  Ihr  Geschaft  (Synthesis  genannt)  ist,  das  iu 
Raum  und  Zeit  gegebene  Mannigfaltige  zu  verbinden.  Ist  das  zu  verbin- 
dende  Mannigfaltige  in  der  Erfahrung  gegeben,  so  ist  die  Synthese  em- 
pi  risch  ;  sie  ist  rein,  wenn  das  Mannigfaltige  a  priori  gegeben  ist.  .  .  . 
Erst  wenn  der  Begriff  der  Einbildungskraft  als  beherrschender  Mittelpunkt 
der  Kantischen  Erkenntnisstheorie  sich  herausgestellt  haben  wird,  wird 
auch  die  Aprioritat  von  Raum  und  Zeit  in  ihrem  wahren  Lichte  erscheinen. 
.  .  .  .Doch  wie,  wenn  die  Einbildungskraft  nichts  ware  als  der  unbcwusst 
arbeitende  Verstand  ?  wenn  der  Verstand  beim  Beurtheilen  der  Anschau- 
ungswelt  wie  beim  Denken  der  Kategorien  nur  das  Wesen  seiner  eigenen 
unbewusst  producirten  Gebilde  sich  zum  Bewusstsein  b.-iichte  ?  Dass  diese 
AufTassung,  wie  sie  schon  bei  §  10  sich  aufdrangt,  der  gauzen  Kantischen 
Erkenntnisstheorie  zu  Grunde  liegt,  soil  die  weitere  Entwicklung  zu  zeigen 
versuchen."  (A.  Holder,  Darstellung  der  Kantischen  Erkenntnisstheorie, 
1873;  18-20.) 


•I. 


1, 


l.|i- 


',  I 


II  ' 


142 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


of  the  "  receptivity  of  impressions "  (Receptivitdt  der 
Mndriicke),  The  result  is  complete  logical  dislocation  of 
his  theory  and  failure  of  his  undertaking.  If  the  "  spon- 
taneity of  concepts  "  had  been  paralleled  by  the  "  spon- 
taneity of  sensations,"  as  the  logic  of  the  undertaking 
required,  the  object  of  experience  would  have  been  wholly 
derived  from  the  subject  a  priori  —  both  the  material  and 
the  formal  conditions  of  experience  would  have  been  dis- 
covered entirely  within  the  constitution  of  the  universal 
human  mind.  But  in  what  sense  "  universal "  ?  Only  in 
the  sense  of  such  universality  as  may  obtain  within  a 
single  individual  consciousness.  According  to  Kant,  to 
one  human  subject  no  other  human  subject  can  possibly  be 
more  than  an  object  of  experience,  a  mere  phaenomenon ; 
and  it  would  follow  that  I  cannot  know  the  existence  or 
appearance  of  other  I's  except  as  absolute  products  of 
my  own  activity  a  priori^  as  mere  "  things  in  my  dream." 
This  is  solipsism,  the  only  logical  outcome  of  the  under- 
taking in  question.  The  logic  of  all  idealism,  whether 
subjective,  transcendental,  or  absolute,  is  the  logic  of 
solipsism,  avoidable  by  inconsequence  alone.  Nothing 
short  of  an  absolute  spontaneity  of  the  subject  —  spon- 
taneity of  sensations  as  well  as  spontaneity  of  concepts  — 
could  logically  explain  the  object  of  experience  "out  of 
the  material  and  formal  conditions  contained  in  our  reason." 
Rigorously  followed  out,  what  is  that  but  solipsism  ?  For 
"our  reason"  is  a  mere  act  of  "my  reason,"  unless  I  ad- 
vance from  the  synthetic  to  the  generic  unity  of  appercep- 
tion. Yet  Kant  was  no  solipsist.  He  imagined  he  escaped 
that  consequence  because  the  universal  "  pure  consciousness- 
in-general  "  was  immanent,  identical,  and  unchangeable  in 
every  individual  "empirical  consciousness,"  and,  there- 
fore, what  was  true  of  that  must  hold  good  in  this.  In 
other  words,  he  built  on  the  Aristotelian  Paradox.  But 
neither  Kant  nor  Aristotle  could  explain  how,  since  "  per- 
ception "  is  not  "  knowledge,"  it  can  be  known  that  there 
is  more  than  one  "empirical  consciousness."     By  rejecting 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


143 


"knowledge"  of  the  individual  difference,  both  lose  all 
ground  of  plurality  and  individuation.  The  Kantian 
Trennung  is  as  fatal  as  the  Platonic  x.<apurfw<s,  and  the  only 
logical  escape  from  solipsism  is  the  Generic  Unity  of 
Apperception  (§  63). 

§  206.  Hitherto  the  new  theory  of  knowledge  has  been 
presented  piecemeal  in  unsystematized  form,  but  now  it  is 
time  to  present  it  as  a  whole  in  the  form  of  system,  that  is, 
in  tabular  conciseness,  comprehensiveness,  and  unity.  The 
general  principle  of  these  tables  is  that  of  the  realism 
which  has  perpetuated  itself  in  unbroken  continuity 
through  the  ages  as  the  realism  of  physical  science ;  it 
took  unscientitic  form  in  scholasticism,  and  now  waits 
to  assume  scientific  form  in  philosophy  through  rejection 
of  the  Kantian  critical  idealism  and  development  of  a 
scientific  epistemology  on  the  basis  of  a  scientific  ontology 
(§  172,  III).  The  principle  of  all  realism  was  formulated 
by  Aristotle,  and  the  formula,  if  fully  comprehended,  can- 
not be  bettered : 

"There  is  a  science  which  considers  Being  as  Being  [univer- 
sally] and  the  units  which  belong  to  it  in  itself  (eorti/  fwioTrifitj  ns  fj 
$€<ap€i  TO  tv  u  hv  Koi  to.  rovra  xmdpxpvra  K.aff'  auro).** 

That  is,  the  object  of  the  "  first  philosophy "  is  Being  as 
the  Unit-Universal  in  itself.  Modern  critical  realism  must 
found  itself  on  the  necessary  objectivity  of  relations  as  the 
Law  of  Unit-Universals,  and  the  consequent  identity  in 
difference  of  experience  and  reason  in  all  cognition;  and 
the  following  tables  are  an  endeavor  to  give  scientific 
development  and  form  to  this  law  as  the  fundamental 
principle  of  the  new  epistemology. 


\l     L 


V  ■ 


I  1 


ii! 


f 


r 


144  THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


TABLE  V 
Critical  Realism :  Object  of  Knowledge). 

I.  Phaenomknon-Noumknon  as  Unit-Universal  of 

Existence. 

Identity  in  Difference  of  Matter  and  Form  as  Energy  and  Relation, 
Specimen  in  Itself  as  One  System  of  invoardly  and  ovAtoardly  Re- 
lated Energies. 

L    Its  Matter  =  Energy  as  a  Unit  of  Substance. 
ii.    Its  Form  =  Relation  as  a  Universal  of  Essence  =  Immanent 
Relational  Constitution  of   Generic,   Specific,  and   Reific 
Essence. 
iii.    Its  Effect  on  the  Subject  =  Stimulus  to  Perception  of  the  Unit 
and  Conception  of  the  Universal. 

II.  Phaenomenon-Noumenon  as  Unit-Universal  of 

Knowledge. 

Identity  in  Difference  of  Matter  and  Form  as  Experience  and  Reason. 
Percept- Concept  of  Specimen  in  Itself 

i.     Its  Matter  =  Experience  as  Perception  of  Specimen  in  Itself, 
ii.     Its  Form  =  Reason  as  Conception  of  Specimen  in  Itself. 
iiL    Its  Effect  on  the  Subject  =  Knowledge  of  Specimen  in  Itself. 

lU.    Evolution  of  Real  Cognitions. 

Dynamical  Correlation  of  Object  and  Subject  as  Specimens  in 
Themselves. 

Gradual  Reproduction  in  Thought  of  a  Phaenomenon-Noumenon  of 
Existence  as  a  Phaenomenon-Noumenon  of  Knowledge,  through 
Perception  of  it  and  its  single  relations  (attributes,  qualities, 
properties,  accidents,  etc.)  as  Units,  and  Conception  of  them  as 
Universals,  in  the  PerceptrConcept  of  the  Unit-Universal  or 
Object  of  Knowledge.  (*Ev  rovrois  ff  iaorris  ivorrjt :  Agreement 
of  Percept-Concept  with  Object  =  Science  as  Truth.) 

§  207.  Thoughtful  comparison  of  Table  V  with  Table  IV 
will  make  clear  the  ground  of  failure  in  critical  idealism  as 
a  theory  of  knowledge.  Kuno  Fischer,  in  a  passage  already 
quoted,  says  that  "  the  Critique  of  Reason  is  the  doctrine  of 


f. 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


145 


the  origination  of  objects,  or  phaenomena,  out  of  the  mate- 
rial and  formal  conditions  contained  in  our  reason:  this 
doctrine  is  called  transcendental  or  critical  idealism." 
But  such  origination  is  precisely  what  the  doctrine  fails  to 
explain.  It  frustrates  its  own  aim :  (1)  by  illicitly  sepa- 
rating matter  and  form,  substance  and  essence,  or  energy 
and  relation;  and  then  (2)  by  illicitly  substituting  a  new 
matter  for  the  original  matter,  the  sensation  in  itself  for 
the  thing  in  itself,  the  energy  of  the  subject  fur  the  energy 
of  the  object.  It  consistently  enough  subjectifies  form 
(that  is,  all  relations  as  such)  by  deriving  it  exclusively 
from  the  energy  of  the  subject  as  "  self-activity "  or 
"synthesis  a  priori."  But  it  is  incurably  inconsistent, 
when  it  first  objectifies  matter  by  attributing  the  origin  of 
each  particular  sensation,  and  therewith  of  each  "  real 
cognition,"  to  the  causal  energy  of  an  external  "  transcen- 
dental object  *'  (die  nichtsinnliche  Ursache  dieser  Vorstellun- 
gen)^  and  then  subjectifies  matter  by  substituting  for  this 
external  real  energy  in  the  object  an  internal  real  energy 
in  the  subject  as  feeling  or  pure  sensation  (Empfindung). 
This  substitution  of  one  energy  for  another,  this  duplication 
of  matter,  throws  the  Kantian  doctrine  of  origination  into 
confusion.  Energy  in  the  object  and  energy  in  the  sub- 
ject are  two  units  in  one  universal  energy ;  and  each,  as 
matter,  must  have  its  own  form.  In  one  and  the  same 
unit  of  reality,  according  to  Kant  himself,  matter  and 
form  are  distinguishable,  but  not  separable,  as  '^the  de- 
terminable in  general"  (das  Bestimmbare  uberhaupt)  and 
"  its  determination  "  (dessert  Bestimmung).  The  attempt  to 
separate  them  simply  splits  this  unit  into  two  other  units, 
each  of  which,  however,  must  have  its  own  matter  and 
form  as  before.  This  is  what  happens  with  Kant.  He 
simply  splits  the  "object"  into  "thing  in  itself,"  as  ex- 
ternal cause,  and  "sensation,"  as  internal  effect:  to  the 
latter,  as  a  new  matter,  he  of  course  assigns  a  new  form, 
deriving  it  from  synthesis  a  priori^  while  to  the  former, 
although   he  has  made  it  equally  a  new  matter  and  un- 

VOL.  II.  —  10 


It 


M 


li 


I 
II 


I  !1 


146 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


consciously  assigned  it  a  new  form  (as  will  appear  below), 
he  denies  all  form,  and  for  that  reason  conceives  the  fiction 
that  the  "  thing  in  itself  "  is  utterly  unknowable.  But  this 
is  total  collapse  of  critical  idealism,  which  thus  fails  to 
explain  the  "origination  of  objects,  or  phaenomena,  out  of 
the  material  and  formal  conditions  contained  in  our  reason  " 
—  that  is,  in  the  subject  alone.  For  the  offered  explana- 
tion leaves  the  "  thing  in  itself,"  as  out  of  the  subject,  an 
indispensable  material  condition  of  the  "phaenomenon,"  as 
wholly  within  the  subject.  Nothing  short  of  the  doctrine 
that  sensation  is  derived  from  the  sensitive  individual 
subject  a  priori^  independently  of  all  "  things  in  them- 
selves," could  have  made  critical  idealism  self-consistent, 
or  enabled  it  to  offer  even  a  plausible  solution  of  the 
problem  tersely  formulated  by  Kuno  Fischer.  No  one  of 
Kant's  successors  has  ever  supplied  this  defect,  because  no 
one  of  them  lias  ever  ventured  to  be  a  strict  solipsist. 

§  208.  The  logical  failure  of  critical  idealism  just  noted 
has  been  more  or  less  clearly  seen  from  the  beginning,  but 
a  deeper  logical  failure,  so  far  as  we  know,  has  not  yet 
been  discerned.  Contrary  to  his  own  definitions  as  dcts 
Bestiminhare  uberhaupt  and  dessen  Bestimmungy  Kant  not 
only  distinguishes  but  separates  "  matter,"  as  solely  a  pos- 
teriori, from  "form,"  as  solely  a  priori;  and  his  general 
result  is  that  we  know  "  phaenomena  alone,"  because  the 
"thing  in  itself,"  being  matter  without  form,  is  in  itself 
unknowable  (^  v\rj  dyvtaoTo^  Ka$^  avTTJv) :  that  is,  it  is  known 
to  be  unknowable  —  a  contradiction  per  se  involved  of 
necessity  in  the  separation.  Of  course,  the  separated  form 
instantly  acquires  its  new  matter,  as  we  saw  in  the  previous 
section ;  Kant  supplies  it  in  "  sensation."  But  the  sepa- 
rated matter  no  less  instantly  acquires  its  new  form,  and  it 
is  curious  that  Kant  should  fail  to  see  that  he  himself  sup- 
plies this,  too.  By  his  own  showing,  his  "  thing  in  itself  " 
is  not,  as  he  supposes,  matter  without  form,  but  matter 
and  form  both.  Conceding  all  his  own  determinations 
without  exception  and  introducing  no  new  ones  whatever, 


\ 


r 


\ 


i 


I 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


147 


his  "thing  in  itself"  is  self-evidently  just  as  knowable  as 
his  "  phaenomenon  "  —  nay,  much  more  so.  His  Dinge  an 
sich  are  avowedly  given  in  themselves,  before  all  experience 
(vor  aller  Erfahrung  an  sich  sclbst  gegebcn),  as  a  S2)eciesy 
hence  as  a  real  universal ;  each  Ding  an  sich  is  given  as  a 
specimen  of  this  species,  hence  as  a  real  unit ;  all  are  given 
as  "  things,"  real  existences  of  one  and  the  same  real  kind, 
hence  possessed  of  a  common  specific  essence  as  "thing- 
hood  ; "  each  is  given  as  numerically  different  from  all  the 
rest  {to  apiOfiQ  €v),  hence  possessed  of  a  unique  individual 
difference  or  reific  essence  as  this  particular  thing  and  no 
other ;  each  is  given  as  an  actual  cause  of  sensation,  hence 
possessed  of  causal  energy  as  its  real  substance,  and  related 
specifically  to  its  own  individual  effect  and  no  other ;  lastly, 
all  these  determinations,  combinations,  and  connections, 
that  is,  all  these  relations^  are  absolutely  given  in  an  imma- 
nent relational  constitution  of  generic,  specific,  and  reific 
essence  in  each  and  every  Ding  an  sich,  not  in  the  least  as 
derived  from  any  "  synthesis  a  prloid  "  in  the  subject,  but 
as  inherent  of  necessity  (Apriori  of  Being)  in  the  nature 
of  the  object  as  a  unit-universal  of  energy,  — an  undeniable 
Ansich  which  is  independent  of  the  subject  and  logically 
prior  to  all  its  sensuous  experience  and  rational  synthe- 
sis combined.  Here  were  present  all  the  elements  of  a 
complete  and  definite  concept  of  the  "  thing  in  itself "  — 
one  of  the  highest  generality,  it  is  true,  but  that  holds  good 
of  all  great  conceptual  generalizations.  What  amazes  is  that 
Kant  should  not  understand  the  actual  outcome  of  his  own 
work,  and,  instead  of  inferring  from  his  own  premises  that 
the  "  thing  in  itself  "  is  knowable,  as  identity  in  difference 
of  matter  and  form,  substance  and  essence,  or  energy  and 
relation  in  the  necessary  constitution  of  the  unit-universal 
of  real  existence  (critical  realism),  should  on  the  contrary 
infer  that  the  "thing  in  itself"  is  unknovmble  (critical 
idealism).  For  he  thereby  destroyed  every  possible  con- 
cept of  the  object  of  knowledge,  since  his  "phaenomenon  " 
csan  be  only  one  of  two  alternatives :  either  "  not  the  thing 


i< 


Hi 


II': 


148 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


as  it  is  in  itself,"  which  is  the  object  of  ignorance  (I  do  not 
know  the  thing  as  it  is),  or  "  the  thing  as  it  is  not  in  itself," 
which  is  the  object  of  error  (I  know  the  thing  as  it  is  not). 
He  himself  says  of  the  " phaenomenon "  that  it  "has  no 
objective  reality  in  itself,  and  exists  only  in  being  known  " 
—  which  perfectly  conforms  to  Berkeley's  principle  that  the 
only  esse  of  objects  is  percipi,^  What  amazes  still  morei 
however,  is  that  this  theory  of  the  unknowableness  of  the 
"  thing  in  itself,"  which  offers  nothing  but  the  "  phae- 
nomenon  "  as  illusion  agreed  on^  either  as  an  object  of  ig- 
norance or  an  object  of  error,  should  have  maintained  itself 
so  long  as  a  "  theory  of  knowledge."  Surely,  the  interests 
of  civilization  call  audibly  for  a  scientific  epistemology. 

§  209.  Epistemology  is  obviously  impossible,  unless  the 
object  of  knowledge  is  knowable :  knowable  as  it  is,  not  as 
it  is  not  —  knowable  (more  or  less)  as  it  is  both  in  itself 
and  out  of  itself,  that  is,  in  both  its  internal  and  external 
relations,  without  which  there  would  be  nothing  to  know. 
Only  that  which  is  intrinsically  unrelated  could  be  intrin- 
sically unknowable,  and  that  which  is  intrinsically  unre- 
lated could  not  exist  at  all  in  a  universe  which  is  both 
many  and  one  ;  for  co-existence  and  number  are  themselves 
relations  of  the  many  in  the  one.  Whatever  exists,  there- 
fore, must  exist  in  relations,  and  be  ipso  facto  knowable  in 
itself  through  having  a  relational  constitution.  In  other 
words,  if  the  "  thing  in  itself  "  could  possibly  be  unknowable, 
it  could  not  possibly  exist ;  existence  and  knowableness  are 
of  necessity  one  and  the  same ;  the  unknowable  is  simply 
the  non-existent.  Hence  relations  are  real,  if  things  are 
real;  the  reality  of  one  is  that  of  the  other.  This  prin- 
ciple of  the  necessary  Reality  or  Objectivity  of  Relations, 
without  which  no  epistemology  can  have  a  knowable  object 

^  ".  .  .  sie  an  sich  selbst  keine  objective  Healitat  hat  und  nur  im 
Erkenntnisse  existirt  .  .  ."  (Kritik  der  reinen  Veraunft,  Ite  Aufl.,  Werke, 
III.  579.)  Similarly:  '* Erscheinungen  konnen,  als  solche,  nicht  ausser 
uus  stattfinden,  sondem  ejustiren  nur  in  unserer  Sinnlichkeit."  {lUid, 
III.  583.) 


* 


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THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


149 


of  knowledge,  is  the  fundamental  principle  of  critical 
realism :  namely,  that  the  only  possible  object  of  knowl- 
edge is  the  "  thing  in  itself  "  —  that  is,  identity  in  difference 
of  energy  and  relation,  relational  constitution  of  generic, 
specific,  and  reific  essence  in  the  unit-universal  of  energy  or 
substance.  This  necessary  principle  of  the  Objectivity  of 
Relations,  when  developed,  is  the  Law  of  Unit-Universals : 
that  is,  the  law  of  genus,  species,  and  specimen,  as  (1) 
immanent  relational  condition  of  existence  itself,  or  the 
Apriori  of  Being ;  and  for  that  reason  (2)  immanent  rela- 
tional condition  of  all  possible  percept-concepts  of  exist- 
ence, or  determination  of  the  Apriori  of  Thought  by  the 
Apriori  of  Being.  Still  further  developed,  it  is  the  Law  of 
Syllogistic,  which  determines  a  priori  (1)  the  origination  of 
unit-universals  of  existence,  real  relational  objects  of  knowl- 
edge, or  "things  in  themselves,"  through  the  Objective 
Inference  or  Syllogism  of  Being;  (2)  the  origination  of 
individual  percept-concepts  of  unit-universals  of  existence 
through  the  Subjective  Inference  or  Syllogism  of  Knowl- 
edge ;  and  (3)  the  origination  of  universally  verified  cogni- 
tions and  particular  sciences  and  world-science  through  the 
Scientific  Method  or  Syllogism  of  Philosophy.  Lastly, 
when  brought  to  its  fullest  logical  development,  this  funda- 
mental principal  of  the  Objectivity  of  Relations  is  the 
Scientific  Theory  of  Reality,  as  the  real,  objective,  or  cos- 
mical  identity  in  difference  of  substance,  essence,  process, 
and  law:  that  is,  (1)  necessary  identity  in  difference  of 
energy  and  relation  in  the  universe  as  one  in  many ;  (2) 
necessary  identity  in  difference  of  self-particularizatioriy 
through  energy,  substance,  or  Will,  and  self-universaliza,- 
tiorif  through  relation,  essence,  or  Reason,  in  the  universe 
as  many  in  one  ;  and  (3)  necessary  identity  in  difference  of 
self-particularizing  Will  and  self-universalizing  Reason  in 
the  universe  as  infinite  subject-object  or  Absolute  I.  Thus 
critical  realism  is  the  derivation  of  scientific  epistemology 
from  scientific  ontology  as  its  only  possible  ground.  Exist- 
ence determines  knowledge  in  epistemology;   knowledge 


n 

I 


H 


150 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


I' 


determines  existence  in  ethics;  and  identity  in  difference 
of  these  two  principles  is  the  supreme  principle  of  personal 
and  social  life  as  rational  religion.  These  statements  will 
all  receive  elucidation  in  Chapter  XVIII. 

§  210.  But  a  vital  inquiry  must  precede.  What  is  the 
ultimate  origin  of  Relation  as  such  ?  This  question,  than 
which  none  can  go  deeper  or  mean  more,  is  the  parting  of 
the  ways  between  critical  idealism  and  critical  realism. 
Let  us  first  consider  the  answer  of  the  former. 

All  the  forms  of  synthesis  a  j^riorl  which  Kant  attributes 
to  the  transcendental  subject,  whether  as  the  "synthesis  of 
apprehension  in  intuition,"  the  "synthesis  of  reproduction 
in  imagination,"  or  the  "synthesis  of  recognition  in  con- 
cepts," are  only  steps  in  that  subjective  spontaneous  origi- 
nation of  Relation  as  such  by  which  the  formless  matter 
of  sensation  is  "arranged"  or  brought  into  shape  in  the 
intelligible  or  internally  related  form  of  the  phaenomenon, 
the  object  of  knowledge  in  general.  So  little  does  he  con- 
ceive the  all-embracingness  of  relation  that  he  makes  it 
only  one  of  the  four  great  heads,  "quantity,  quality,  rela- 
tion, modality,"  under  which  he  classifies  all  pure  concepts 
a  prion^  not  seeing  that  quantity,  quality,  and  modality  are 
merely  varieties  of  relation.  Partly  in  consequence  of  this 
inappreciation,  he  makes  all  relation  the  pure  work  of  the 
human  mind,  and  pure  production  of  form  through  the 
mind's  spontaneity  the  very  possibility  of  knowledge  itself. 

"  Only  the  productive  synthesis  of  imagination  can  take  place 
a  prioriy  for  the  reproductive  rests  on  conditions  of  experience. 
Therefore,  the  principle  of  the  necessary  unity  of  the  pure  produc- 
tive synthesis  of  the  imagination  before  apperception  is  the  ground 
of  the  possibility  of  all  knowledge,  especially  of  experience."  ^ 

In  other  words,  the  exclusively  subjective  origin  of  all 
relation  as  such  is  the  necessary  condition  of  the  possibility 
of  experience  itself.  All  formative  relations  whatsoever 
originate  spontaneously  in  the  "  pure  productive  synthesis 

1  Werke,  III.  678. 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


151 


of  imagination,"  prior  to  that  "synthetical  unity  of  apper- 
ception "  by  which  many  imaginative  syntheses  are  related 
and  made  one  in  a  single  consciousness  as  all  rriine.  In 
the  last  analysis,  this  productive  synthesis  is  itself  the 
"  spontaneity  of  knowledge,"  because  it  is  the  spontaneity 
or  subjective  origin  of  all  relation  as  such  out  of  the  re- 
lating self-activity  or  pure  creativity  of  the  subject  alone. 
By  this  doctrine  the  Apriorismus  of  critical  idealism  is 
concentrated  or  focussed  in  the  principle  of  the  exclusively 
subjective  origin  of  all  relation  as  such. 

Thus  all  relation  in  the  object  is  explained  as  the  pure 
work  of  the  subject.  But  relation  in  the  subject  itself, 
relation  in  the  highly  complex  constitution  of  a  jyriori 
faculties  by  which  it  works  —  how  is  that  explained  ?  Is 
that,  too,  the  pure  work  of  the  subject  ?  Does  the  subject 
absolutely  create  its  own  relational  constitution  ?  Does  it 
determine  itself  to  be  itself  before  it  is  itself?  This  it 
must  do,  if  relation  as  such  has  no  other  origin  than  the 
human  subject.  How  does  Kant  answer  these  questions  ? 
He  never  answers  them,  because  he  never  puts  them.  But, 
prior  to  all  a  priori  relating  self-activity  of  the  subject,  he 
unwittingly  presupposes  relation,  as  he  must,  in  the  subject 
itself,  and  thereby  unwittingly  presupposes  the  law  of  unit- 
universals,  as  that  Apriori  of  Being  which  conditions  all  his 
own  Ajyrioriwins  of  Thought :  the  conditions  of  thought  in 
the  thinking  subject  must  be  determined  a  jmori  by  the  con- 
ditions of  existence  in  the  existing  suhjerf,  or  else  thought 
itself  is  impossible.  Hence  every  subject  which  exists  and 
thinks  must  be  itself  a  something,  a  thinking  thing  of  a 
thinking  kind,  many  in  one  and  one  in  many  as  a  real  unit- 
universal.  Not  perceiving  this  Apriori  of  Being  in  general 
as  logically  and  ontologically  prior  to  his  own  "pure  reason 
a  priori"  Kant  yet  postulates  an  ontological  synthesis  as 
the  necessary  condition  of  his  own  synthesizing  tran- 
scendental subject:  — 

**  The  synthetical  principle  that  every  variant  empirical  con- 
sciousness  must    be  combined    in    a  single   self-couscioiisness  is 


(  I 


152 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


153 


iSill 


the  absolutely  first  and  synthetical  ground-principle  of  all  our 
thinking.*'  * 

Yet  this  ground-principle  is  no  work  of  the  subject  at  all. 
For  solely  in  a  subject  relationally  constituted  beforehand  as 
a  unit-universal  of  self-consciousness,  as  Kant  himself  here 
confesses,  can  "synthesis  a  priori^'  itself  appear  as  its 
relating  or  relationing  function.  Still  more  in  detail,  the 
relational  constitution  of  reason  itself,  as  the  faculty  of 
"synthesis  a  priori,^^  is  explained  to  be  essentially  an 
organic  constitution:  — 

**  Pure  Reason  is  a  whole  so  isolated  and  everywhere  so  interre- 
lated in  itself  that  we  cannot  impinge  upon  one  part  of  it  without 
affecting  all  the  rest,  and  we  cannot  do  anything  with  it  without 
having  previously  determined  for  each  part  its  place  and  its  in- 
fluence on  the  other  parts.  For,  there  being  nothing  outside  of  it 
by  which  our  judgment  of  it  in  itself  could  be  regulated,  the 
validity  and  use  of  every  part  depend  on  the  relation  in  which  it 
stands  to  the  other  parts  in  Reason  itself.  As  in  the  structure  of 
an  organized  body,  the  purpose  of  each  member  can  be  deduced 
solely  from  the  complete  concept  of  the  whole.*' ' 

Manifestly,  the  organic  interrelatedness  which  thus  avow- 
edly conditions  the  very  existence  of  reason  itself  as  a 
judging  energy  or  synthesizing  faculty  cannot  be  explained 
by  "synthesis  a  priori^^  as  a  mere  functioning  or  act  of 
that  faculty.  Yet  subjective  "synthesis  a  prwri^^  is  the 
only  explanation  which  critical  idealism  has  to  give  of  the 

*  **  Der  synthetische  Satz,  dass  alles  verschiedene  empirische  Bewusst- 
sein  in  einem  einigen  Selbstbewusstsein  verbunden  sein  miisse,  ist  der 
schlechthin  erste  iind  synthetische  Grundsatz  unseres  Denkons  iiberhaupt. " 
(Kritik  der  reineii  Vemiinft,  Ite  Auflage,  Werke,  III.  578,  footnote.)  So, 
in  both  editions :  "  Sie  [d.  i.  die  Kategorien]  bios  dazu  dienen,  durcli 
Griinde  einer  a  priori  nothwendigen  Einheit  (wegen  der  nothwendigen 
Vereinigung  alles  Bewnsstseins  in  einer  urspriinglichen  Apperception), 
Erseheinungen  allgenieinen  Regeln  der  Synthesis  zu  unterwerfen."  (IhiH. 
Werke,  TIL  146.)  This  relational  "union,"  prior  to  the  "rules  of  syn- 
thesis," must  he  ontolo<]fical,  yet  a  jm'ori,  too  —  the  Apriori  of  Ik'ing. 

-  Pnthvironinna,  Vorrode,  Werke,  IV.  11. 


origin  of  relation  as  such.  It  presupposes  relation  in 
the  subject  itself,  prior  to  all  its  synthesizing  or  relationing 
in  the  phaenomenal  object,  and  so  begs  the  question  of 
that  origin.  If,  then,  its  substitution  of  the  subjective 
energy  of  Empfindung,  as  material  effect,  for  the  objective 
energy  of  the  Ding  an  sich,  as  material  cause,  and  its 
invention  thereby  of  a  new  and  purely  subjective  "  matter  " 
in  the  subjective  formation  of  the  Erscheimmg,  as  sole 
object  of  knowledge,  were  not  alone  more  than  enough 
to  condemn  the  Kantian  Erkenntnisstheorie  as  a  scientific 
theory,  surely  this  petitio  principii,  this  naive  presupposi- 
tion in  the  subject  itself  of  that  very  relation  as  such  which 
it  seeks  to  account  for  in  the  object  as  solely  the  work 
of  the  subject's  "synthesis  a  priori,^*  would  be  itself 
enough  to  justify  the  demand  for  a  genuinely  scientific 
epistemology. 

§  211.  What  answer,  then,  does  critical  realism  give  to 
the  question  as  to  the  origin  of  relation  as  such  ? 

Kant's  necessary  assumption  or  presupposition  of  rela- 
tion as  such  in  the  necessary  constitution  of  the  subject,  as 
a  unit-universal  of  synthesizing  energies  or  self-activities, 
prior  both  logically  and  ontologically  to  all  its  actual  syn- 
theses of  intuition,  imagination,  and  conception  in  the  pro- 
duction of  the  "  phaenomenon,"  furnishes  itself  a  clew  to 
the  labyrinth.  For  this  presupposition,  although  not  at 
all  warranted  by  his  own  theory  as  the  mere  Apriori  of 
Thought,  is  perfectly  warranted  by  the  law  of  unit-univer- 
sals  as  the  Apriori  of  Being.  No  subject  is  (logically)  pos- 
sible, as  Kant  himself  teaches,  except  as  a  real  (ontological) 
synthesis  of  empirical  consciousnesses  in  a  single  rational 
self-consciousness  —  that  is,  as  a  unit-universal:  this,  he 
says,  is  the  "  ground-principle  of  all  our  thinking.''  Such 
a  subject,  however,  is  a  unit-universal  of  real  existence, 
and  already  possesses  an  ontologically  relational  constitu- 
tion as  one  in  many  and  many  in  one.  Unaware,  therefore, 
of  the  significance  of  his  own  procedure,  Kant's  presuppo- 
sition is  his  unintended  but  virtual  recognition  of  the  uni- 


154 


THE   SYLLOGISTIC  nnLOSOPHY 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


155 


vcrsal  ontolngieal  lam  of  unit-nniversaJs,  as  logically  and 
ontologically  anterior  to  his  supposed  "  ground-principle  of 
all  our  thinking."  In  other  words,  by  his  own  unconscious 
showing,  the  Apriori  of  Being  necessarily  conditions  and 
determines  his  Apriori  of  Thought  in  all  human  knowledge. 
Critical  realism  is  simply  full  and  conscious  recognition  of 
this  same  law  of  unit-universals,  as  a  necessity  which  is 
absolute  and  ultimate  in  both  Being  and  Thought.  It  is  a 
law  which  admits  of  no  further  explanation,  because  all 
explanation  must  take  it  for  granted,  even  the  syllogism 
being  a  mere  case  of  application  of  it.  It  simply  "  cannot 
be  otherwise  "  (es  nicht  anders  sein  kdnne)^  inasmuch  as  it 
conditions  the  possibility  of  a  subject  no  less  than  that  of 
an  object,  and  determines  the  reality  of  each  of  the  two 
as  an  actual  identity  in  difference  of  energy  and  relation  j 
which  reality  is  the  prior  condition  of  knowledge  itself,  as 
the  actual  relation  of  subject  and  object  in  every  actual  cog- 
nition. Self-evidently,  if  knowledge  itself  is  the  relation 
of  subject  and  object,  knowledge  depends  on  relation,  not 
relation  on  knowledge,  and  the  Objectivity  of  Relations, 
as  conditioning  a  priori  the  Subjectivity  of  Relations,  is 
the  first  principle  of  a  scientific  epistemology. 

Critical  realism,  then,  inquiring  into  the  origin  of  rela- 
tion as  such,  must  first  of  all  discriminate  between  those 
relations  which  inhere  in  the  object  known  and  those  which 
arise  in  the  subject  as  coming  to  know  it.  Since  the  human 
subject  itself  arises,  it  is  manifest  that  the  relations  in- 
volved in  its  essential  constitution,  which  Kant  himself 
recognizes  to  be  that  of  a  unit-universal,  are  necessarily 
prior,  no  less  logically  than  ontologically,  to  all  those  which 
arise  through  its  own  mere  functioning,  whether  as  "  syn- 
thesis a  priori "  or  synthesis  a  posteriori  ;  and  all  such  con- 
stitutional relations,  conditioning  as  they  do  the  possibility 
of  its  own  functional  syntheses,  exist  a  priori^  and  become 
known  in  the  subject  itself  solely  qua  object  of  its  own  cog- 
nition, not  qua  subject  at  all.  These  considerations,  inde- 
pendently of  all  others,  demonstrate  the  untenability  of  the 


Kantian  principle  of  the  exclusively  subjective  origin  of  all 
relation  as  such.  In  other  words,  by  the  Apriori  of  Being, 
relation  as  such  must  exist  in  the  object  per  se,  the  Ding  an 
sichy  the  unit-universal,  as  the  absolute  condition  of  the 
possibility  of  knowledge :  immanent  relational  constitution 
in  the  unit-universal  as  such  is  at  once  the  condition  of 
existence  and  of  knowableness,  (1)  in  the  object  as  known, 
(2)  in  the  subject  as  knowing,  and  (3)  in  the  subject-object 
as  knowing  itself.  Thus  the  absolute  and  unconditioned 
necessity  of  "that  which  cannot  be  otherwise"  lies  at  the 
bottom  of  all  existence  and  of  all  knowledge  alike,  and  con- 
stitutes that  Apriori  of  Being  which  determines  the  Apriori 
of  Thought. 

With  reference  to  the  question  of  origin,  therefore,  rela- 
tions may  be  divided  into  two  great  classes  as  variable 
and  invariable,  ^necessary  and  contingent,  a  priori  and  a 
posteHorL 

§  212.   I.   Ontological  Relations. 

i.  Invariable,  unconditioned,  unoriginated :  Apriori  of 
Being  in  Space  and  Time:  relational  necessities  as  condi- 
tions of  possibility  in  existence:  real  relations  which  "can- 
not be  otherwise."  E.  g.  every  scalene  triangle  must  have 
its  greatest  side  opposite  to  its  greatest  angle ;  every  case 
of  cause  and  effect  must  be  a  transformation  of  energy ; 
every  species  must  be  a  unit  to  its  own  genus  and  a  uni- 
versal to  its  own  specimens ;  every  free  action  ought  to 
be  just.  Such  eternal  relations  have  no  origin  whatever  • 
they  condition  and  determine  the  possibility  of  all  origin 
itself.  This  is  the  element  of  absolute  necessity  and  uni- 
versality—the unoriginated  major  premise  in  the  Syllo- 
gism of  Being. 

ii.  Variable,  conditioned,  originated :  Aposteriori  of  Being 
in  Space  and  Time :  related  forms  of  actuality  in  existence : 
real  relations  which  "  may  or  may  not  be."  E,  g,  the  area 
of  any  particular  triangle  depends  on  the  lengths  of  its 


156 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


base  and  its  half -altitude ;  the  nature  of  any  particular  ef- 
fect depends  on  that  of  its  cause  or  causes ;  the  nature  of 
any  particular  specimen  or  thing  depends  on  that  of  its 
species  or  kind.  Such  mutable  relations,  under  the  im- 
mutable conditions  of  the  Apriori  of  Being,  originate  in 
evolution  through  involution,  that  is,  the  eternally  one  yet 
infinitely  varying  process  of  the  World-Reason  in  the 
World-Energy,  and  emerge  from  potentiality  into  actuality 
in  all  origiu  as  such.  This  is  the  element  of  relative  con- 
tingency and  particularity  —  the  self-originated  minor  pre- 
mise in  the  Syllogism  of  Being. 

iii.  These  two  relational  elements  of  Being,  its  Apriori  or 
absolute  necessity  and  universality,  and  its  Aposteriori  or 
relative  contingency  and  particularity,  are  the  warp  and 
woof  of  the  world.  Neither  possesses  the  slightest  reality 
or  significance  without  the  other,  but  both  together  consti- 
tute the  origin  of  origin  itself.  All  relating  or  relationing 
in  the  real  cosmos  is  reasoning,  the  work  of  the  One  Reason- 
Energy  which  eternally  syllogizes  as  generation  of  new 
forms  out  of  old  forms  in  the  "  course  of  nature,"  thinking 
them  as  premises  and  making  them  as  conclusions.  But 
all  relationing,  that  is,  all  actual  origination  or  production 
of  relations,  is  free  creative  spontaneity  under  that  absolute 
relational  necessity  which,  itself  unoriginated  and  unpro- 
duced,  conditions  a  priori  all  possible  origination,  whether 
in  Being  or  in  Thought ;  that  is,  all  Becoming  is  a  rational 
process,  an  evolution  through  involution,  a  Syllogism  of 
Being.  In  the  infinite  multiplicity  of  relations  which 
"may  or  may  not  be,"  nothing  short  of  the  law  of  unit- 
universals,  the  Apriori  of  Being,  the  ultimate  and  absolute 
necessity  which,  as  the  ground  of  possibility  of  all  form 
and  all  nature,  determines  the  form  and  nature  of  the  syllo- 
gism itself,  can  explain  those  ultimately  syllogistic  rela- 
tions in  Nature  which  "cannot  be  otherwise,"  and  which 
for  that  very  reason  cannot  be  explained  as  the  work  of 
any  "synthesis  a  prior i^^  by  the  human  or  divine  under- 
standing.   If  some  ontological  or  objective  relations  are 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


157 


necessary  per  se  and  others  contingent  per  se,  the  ground  of 
this  difference  cannot  lie  in  the  subject  at  all,  whether 
human  or  divine.  Not  even  God  could  make  a  triangle 
with  only  two  straight  lines  ;  yet  no  power  or  energy  would 
prevent  —  nothing  would  prevent  but  that  unoriginated  ob- 
jective necessity  of  constitutive  relations,  generic,  specific, 
and  reific,  which  we  have  called  the  Apriori  of  Being,  and 
which  is  simply  the  condition  of  the  exercise  of  any  power 
or  energy  whatsoever.  Hence  it  would  be  frivolous  and 
childish  to  interpret  this  aboriginal  necessity  of  the  law  of 
unit-universals  as  a  limitation  of  "  omnipotence ;  "  nothing 
but  power  can  limit  power,  and  the  Apriori  of  Being  is 
simply  the  possibility  of  the  exercise  of  power.  But  the 
exercise  of  all  power  must  take  the  form  of  the  Syllogism 
of  Being,  in  which  the  product  is  at  once  the  logical  con- 
clusion and  the  ontological  result. 


§  213.  11.  Epistemological  Relations. 

i.  Invariable,  conditioned,  originated:  determination  of 
the  Apriori  of  Knowledge  by  the  Apriori  of  Being :  rela- 
tional necessities  as  conditions  of  possibility  in  human 
knowledge:  cognitive  relations  which  "cannot  be  other- 
wise." E,  g,  knowledge  must  agree  with  reality ;  position 
(setzen)  must  agree  with  knowledge ;  inference  must  agree 
with  position.  Or,  more  specifically  :  the  relational  con- 
stitution of  every  real  cognition,  as  a  percept-concept  or 
unit-universal  of  knowledge,  must  agree  with  that  of  the 
object,  as  a  unit-universal  of  existence  in  whatever  sphere 
of  reality;  the  predicate  of  every  judgment  must  agree 
with  its  posited  subject ;  the  conclusion  of  every  syllogism 
must  agree  with  its  posited  premises.  These  agreements 
are  subjective  relational  conditions  of  all  science :  that  is, 
all  thought-syntheses  by  the  subject  must  agree  with  real 
relations  or  prior  syntheses  in  the  object,  or  thought  will 
be  error    (misconception,  misjudgment,  fallacy)  and  not 


158 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


knowledge.  Such  necessary  relations  in  knowledge  origi- 
nate in  the  law  of  unit-universals  as  the  Apriori  of  Being, 
which  determines  the  syllogistic  form  and  nature  of  knowl- 
edge itself.  In  knowledge  as  such  there  is  no  freedom 
whatever  —  no  "  spontaneity  "  except  as  degrees  of  more  or 
less  in  that  self-active  and  self-directing  intellection  of 
objective  relations  which  lies  in  observation,  attention, 
reflection,  and  which  thus  constitutes  the  learning-process  ; 
for  all  human  knowledge  must  be  gradually  acquired.  This 
necessary  use  of  the  law  of  unit-universals  in  all  learning 
is  itself  intelligence,  the  element  of  reason,  the  determina- 
tion of  all  subjective  necessity  and  universality  by  absolute 
objective  necessity  in  the  universe  of  Being,  the  self-regu- 
lation of  our  human  reason-energy  according  to  the  univer- 
sal law  of  the  World-Reason  in  the  World-Energy.  Thus 
the  Apriori  of  Being  reappears  as  the  major  premise  in  the 
Syllogism  of  Knowledge. 

ii.  Variable,  conditioned,  originated:  determination  of 
the  Aposteriori  of  Knowledge  by  the  Aposteriori  of  Being : 
determination  of  the  associations  of  ideas  by  the  associations 
of  realities:  reciprocally  but  shiftingly  related  forms  of 
actuality  in  human  knowledge:  cognitive  relations  which 
"  may  or  may  not  be."  E.  g.  in  perception,  now  this  and 
now  that  presents  itself ;  this  is  associated  now  with  that 
and  now  with  the  other ;  there  is  no  limit  to  the  changeable 
relations  of  circumstance  and  fact  in  the  environment  of  a 
given  subject  —  that  is,  relations  which  are  originated  in 
the  Syllogism  of  Being,  and  which  themselves  originate 
corresponding  relations  in  apprehensive  and  comprehensive 
intelligence  as  the  Syllogism  of  Knowledge.  This  adapta- 
tion or  conformity  of  the  understanding  to  the  single  and 
several  relations  immanent  in  the  object  understood  is  the 
element  of  experience,  the  element  of  empirical  contingency 
and  particularity  in  cognition,  and  in  it  lies  the  possibility 
of  scientific  induction  and  classification  under  the  law 
of  unit-universals,  that  is,  of  grouping  known  specimens  in 
known  species  as  things  of  a  kind.     Thus  the  Aposteriori 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


169 


of  Being  reappears  as  the  minor  premise  in  the  Syllogism 
of  Knowledge. 

iii.    These  two  elements  of  Reason,  which  is  inseparably 
related  to  necessity  and  universality  in  Being  as  the  One, 
and  Experience,  which  is  inseparably  related  to  contingency 
and  particularity  in  Being  as  the  Many,  are  themselves  re- 
lated inseparably  but  distinguishably  to  each  other  in  all 
Knowledge  of  the  One  in  the  Many  and  the  Many  in  the 
One  --  in  one  word,  Science.     The  essence  of  cognition  as 
such  is  the  relational  determination  of  thought  by  existence 
—  reproduction  of  the  relational  constitution  of  the  object, 
as  reality,  in  the  relational  constitution   of  the    percept- 
concept,  as  ideality  or  idea.     That  is,  the  law  of  unit-uni- 
versals is  the  absolute  ground  of  all  ideality  because  it  is 
the  absolute  ground  of  all  reality,  and  because  all  ideality, 
if  itself  real,  must  conform  to  the  condition  of  all  reality, 
the  Apriori  of  Being.     On  the  one  hand,  as  an  active  ca- 
pacity of  knowledge  or  knowing-faculty,  the  human  subject 
is  one  self-consciousness,  a  unit  of  reason-energy  derived 
from   the   reason-energy  of  the  World  as  a  Unit ;  on  the 
other  hand,  as  an  actual  content  of  knowledge  or  product  of 
the  knowing-faculty,  the  human  subject  is  a  series  of  many 
consciousnesses,  a  universal  of  real  cognitions  derived  from 
real  relations  in  the  World  as  a  Universe ;  in  both  aspects 
together,  the  human  subject  is  a  particular  Knower,  a  unit- 
universal  of  finite  reason  and  finite  experience  derived  from 
the  unit-universal  of  infinite  reason  and  infinite  experience, 
the  universe  itself  as  the  Absolute  Knower.     The  origin  of 
all  actual  relations  in  human  knowledge,  therefore,  is  two- 
fold.    All  necessity  and  strict  universality  in  Reason  (re- 
lations  which  "cannot  be  otherwise")   originate   in   the 
unoriginated  Apriori  of  Being,  the  unity  of  those  absolute 
conditions  of  existence   which   determine   the  Apriori  of 
Knowledge ;  all  contingency  and  particularity  in  Experience 
(relations   which   "  may   be   otherwise  ")  originate   in   the 
Aposteriori   of   Being,  the   totality  of  those  innumerable 
forms   of  existence  which  determine  the   Aposteriori  of 


160 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


Knowledge.^  Every  real  cognition  as  a  present  fact  of  con- 
sciousness, therefore,  is  the  identity  in  difference  of  a 
universal  relational  necessity  and  a  particular  relational 
contingency,  that  is,  the  actualized  identity  in  difference 
of  a  universal  principle  and  a  particular  instance  of  it.  How 
can  these  two  ever  coincide  ?  Such  a  relational  combina- 
tion is  possible  only  as  the  conclusion  of  a  real  syllogism, 
in  which  the  principle  is  the  rationally  or  ideally  isolated 
major  and  the  instance  is  the  isolated  minor,  and  in  which 
the  partial  identity  in  difference  of  the  two  as  one  com- 
bined reality,  whether  as  fact  of  consciousness  or  fact  of 
the  world,  can  be  effected  only  by  inferential  energy  in 
drawing  or  making  the  conclusion  (evolution  through  invol- 
ution in  the  objective  inference  =  course  of  reason  in  course 
of  energy  =  "  Course  of  Nature  "  =  Syllogism  of  Being  = 
condition  of  Syllogism  of  Knowledge),  Without  energy, 
reason  could  draw  no  conclusion  from  its  own  premises ; 
without  reason,  energy  would  have  no  premises,  neither 
principles  nor  instances,  and  could  have  no  conclusions  to 
draw.  In  other  words,  every  real  cognition  must  be  a 
syllogism  of  which  reason  (conception  of  principles)  is  the 
major  premise,  experience  (perception  of  instances)  is  the 
minor  premise,  and  knowledge,  or  the  identity  in  difference 
of  reason  and  experience,  that  is,  of  the  principle  and  the 
instance,  is  the  energized  conclusion,  in  that  Syllogism  of 
Thought  which  ideally  reproduces  the  Syllogism  of  Being 
in  real  science  and  realistic  philosophy  as  the  Syllogism  of 
Knowledge. 

§  214.    III.    Ethical  Relations. 

i.  Invariable,  conditioned,  originated:  determination  of 
the  Apriori  of  Duty  (moral  obligation  or  relational  form  of 
the  Right)  by  the  Apriori  of  Being  as  Justice :  relational 
necessities  as  conditions  of  possibility  of  Real  Right  or 

*  "Ko2  vT0K€l<r6u)  5«5o  t4  \6yov  fx^^^^f  ^  f*^  ^  ffeupovfiev  ri  rotavra 
r(a»  6vTuv  6<TU)v  al  dpxal  uri  ivSixotnai  dWwj  (x^iv,  fy  8i  (^  ra  ipSex^f^^*^'* 
(Aristotle,  Eth.  Nic.  1139  a,  6.) 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


161 


Objective  Good  as  the  ultimate  end  of  ethical  beings  ;  jus- 
tice  or  ethical   reciprocity  as   the   objective   standard   of 
human  conduct  (your   right  =  my  duty,  your  duty  =  my 
right) :  moral  ideals  which  ought  to   be   realized  =  moral 
relations  which  "  cannot  be  otherwise."     ^.  g.  every  man 
has  a  necessary  natural  right,  unalienable  by  others,  but 
forfeitable  by  himself,  to  his    "life,  liberty,  and  pursuit 
of  happiness,"  and  a  correlative  duty  to  respect  this  right 
in  others,  that  is,  freely  to  subsume  all  his  purposes  and 
actions  under  it  as  a  law  —  in  a  word,  to  be  just ;  all  men 
are  equal  in  this  right  and  this  duty ;  all  men  have  an  equal 
duty  to  obey  just  laws  and  an  equal  right  to  receive  their 
protection:   all  nations  have  an  equal  right  to  self -sover- 
eignty, and  no  nation  has  any  right  to  buy,  to  sell,  to  ac- 
quire, or  to  hold  sovereignty  over  any  other  nation  except 
by  the  free  consent  and  act  of  the  latter.     Such  reciprocal 
relations  result  of  necessity,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  from 
the  law  of  unit-universals  and  its  corollary,  the  moral  co- 
equality  of  moral   units  in  a  moral   universe;    they  are 
natural,  uncreatable,  and  indestructible  except  by  miscon- 
duct.    Their  proximate  origin  is  knowledge  of  the  neces- 
sary constitution  of  society  as  an  organism,  but  their  ultimate 
origin  is  this  necessary  constitution  or  nature  itself.     They 
cannot  ultimately  originate  either  in  "command"  or  in 
"  contract,"  because  they  exist  and  determine  a  priori  the 
nature  and  limits  of  just  command  and  valid  contract; 
knowledge  of  them  is  the  origin  of  their  felt  or  subjec- 
tive obligatoriness  as  "conscience,"  but  the  knowledge  of 
them  is  itself  determined   by  the  natural  obligation  or  a 
priori  moral  necessity  of  the  co-equality  which  cannot  but 
subsist  between  man  and  man  as  free  units  in  one  universal 
moral  society.     Neither  can  this  necessary  ethical  equation 
of  man  and  man,  as  co-members  of  one  species  and  bearers  of 
the  same  fundamental  rights  and  duties,  possibly  originate 
in  any  individual  consciousness,  or  be  the  product  of  its 
"  synthesis  a  priori ; "   on  the  contrary,  it  is  the  antece- 
dent condition,  origin,  and  ground  of  all  those  rights  and 


VOL.   II. 


11 


\ 


162 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


/\ 


duties.  The  organic  constitution  of  mankind  as  one  ethi- 
cal society  conditions  that  generic  unity  of  apperception 
which  itself  conditions  all  personal  consciousness  (§  59), 
and,  since  every  organism  is  a  living  dynamical  syllogism 
(§  198),  its  syllogistic  idea  (§  199)  constitutes  an  absolutely 
rational  element  in  ethics  analogous  to  that  in  mathematics. 
Hence  "  the  rights  and  duties  of  the  parties,"  formulated  as 
objective  relations  in  scientific  ethics  with  its  two  great 
divisions  of  personal  ethics  and  political  ethics,  constitute 
an  objective  moral  standard  which  is  independent  of  all 
subjective  and  all  merely  abstract  considerations,  and  fur- 
nish a  scientific  ground  for  jurisprudence  and  just  legisla- 
tion. Thus  the  Apriori  of  Being  reappears  in  ethics  as  the 
Apriori  of  Duty,  that  is,  as  the  Ought,  Justice,  Virtue, 
Moral  Obligation,  the  Keal  Right,  the  Objective  Good,  and 
constitutes  the  major  premise  in  the  Syllogism  of  Duty. 

ii.  Variable,  conditioned,  originated:  determination  of 
the  Aposteriori  of  Duty  (moral  action  or  relational  form  of 
the  Deed)  by  the  Aposteriori  of  Being  as  the  Free  Purpose  : 
relational  contingencies  shaped  as  means  to  the  end  of  Real 
Right  or  Objective  Good :  just  purpose  the  subjective  stand- 
ard of  human  conduct  of  all  kinds :  moral  ideals  realized 
freely  =  moral  relations  which  *'  may  or  may  not  be." 
JE.  g.  (1)  A  borrows  money  from  B  —  that  is  the  form  of  a 
fact ;  (2)  A  owes  the  money  to  B  —  that  is  the  form  of  the 
obligation  incurred  in  the  fact ;  (3)  A  intends  to  repay  the 
money  to  B  —  that  is  the  form  of  the  ideal  right  purpose 
to  fulfil  the  obligation  incurred ;  (4)  A  repays  the  money 
to  B  —  that  is  the  form  of  a  new  fact,  as  the  real  right 
deed  which  embodies  the  ideal  right  purpose  and  thereby 
actually  fulfils  the  obligation  incurred  in  the  antecedent 
fact.  What  is  the  origin  of  the  various  relations  thus 
brought  into  existence  ?  (1)  The  objective  relations  in 
the  form  of  the  first  fact  are  contingent,  that  is,  may  or 
may  not  be,  and  originate  in  the  contingent  acts  of  A  and 
B  — Aposteriori  of  Being;  (2)  the  objective  relations  in 
the  form  of  the  particular  obligation  incurred  are  neces- 


THE   SYLLOGISM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


163 


i 


sary,  that  is,  cannot  be  otherwise,  and  originate  in  the 
universal  Ought  —  Apriori  of  Duty;  (3)  the  subjective  rela- 
tions in  the  form  of  the  ideal  right  purpose  are  contingent, 
since  A  may  intend  either  to  repay  or  not  to  repay,  that  is, 
may  form  either  a  right  or  a  wrong  purpose,  and  they  orig- 
inate in  A^s  moral  freedom  —  Aposteriori  of  Duty ;  (4)  the 
objective  relations  in  the  form  of  the  real  right  deed  are 
precisely  the  same  as  the  subjective  relations  in  the  form 
of  the  ideal  right  purpose,  are  therefore  contingent  as 
depending  on  the  subjectively  contingent  (not  to  consider 
other  contingencies  from  outside),  and  originate  in  the 
form  of  the  ideal  purpose  which  is  embodied  in  the  real 
deed  through  the  will  of  A  —  Aposteriori  of  Being.  The 
elements  of  the  case  being  thus  the  borrowing,  the  duty  to 
repay,  the  purpose  to  repay,  and  the  repaying,  what  deter- 
mines the  rightness  or  wrongness  of  the  final  deed  ?  The 
borrowing  necessarily  involves  the  duty,  the  purpose  is 
freely  subsumed  under  the  duty,  the  repaying  merely  effec- 
tuates the  purpose,  that  is,  realizes  it  or  conforms  the  real 
to  the  ideal:  clearly,  the  rightness  or  ethical  character  of 
the  deed  is  determined  by  the  free  subsumption  of  the  pur- 
pose under  the  duty,  and  the  relational  form  of  the  right 
purpose,  rightly  forming  or  determining  the  wholly  blind 
will,  makes  the  relational  form  of  the  deed  right.  Purpose, 
then,  is  the  subjective  standard  of  the  moral  quality  of 
every  deed;  as  that  is  subjectively  right  or  wrong,  so  is 
this  also.  Thus  the  Aposteriori  of  Being  reappears  in 
ethics  as  the  Aposteriori  of  Duty,  that  is,  as  the  partic- 
ular right  purpose,  and  constitutes  the  minor  premise  in 
the  Syllogism  of  Duty. 

iii.  These  two  elements  of  Justice  or  Real  Eight,  the 
objective  standard  of  human  conduct,  and  the  Free  Right 
Purpose  or  Ideal  Right,  its  subjective  standard,  are  distin- 
guishably  but  inseparably  one  in  the  Right  Deed,  which  is 
identity  in  difference  of  the  two.  That  is,  every  entirely 
right  deed  is  a  moral  syllogism ;  subsumption  of  ideal  pur- 
pose under  real  duty  in  the  good  deed  or  act  of  virtue  is 


164 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


quite  analogous  to  subsumption  of  experience  tinder  reason 
in  the  real  cognition.  The  universal  objective  principle  of 
duty  as  Real  Right  is  the  major ;  the  particular  subjective 
instance  of  purpose  as  Ideal  Right  is  the  minor;  and 
identity  in  difference  of  the  principle  and  the  instance,  — 
that  is,  the  deed  which  is  both  objectively  and  subjectively 
right,  —  is  the  logical  conclusion,  effectuated  by  the  blind 
but  rightly  formed  energy  of  the  will.  Thus  it  is  the  pur- 
pose, as  giving  its  whole  relational  form  to  the  will,  which 
freely  mediates  between  two  successive  facts  of  Being  (e.  g. 
the  borrowing,  and  the  repaying  or  not  repaying),  and  de- 
termines the  relational  form  of  the  later  fact  as  subjectively 
a  right  or  a  wrong  deed  (when  action  is  obligatory,  inaction 
is  a  bad  action).  Ultimate  determination  of  the  relational 
form  of  the  deed,  that  is,  the  ultimate  origin  of  the  sub- 
jective moral  relations  embodied  in  it,  must  be  traced  back 
through  the  blind  will  to  the  subjective,  conscious,  and 
freely  formed  purpose ;  and  my  deed  can  be  traced  back  no 
further  than  to  me,  inasmuch  as  my  purpose  cannot  be 
formed  except  by  myself  —  will  not  be  my  purpose  at  all 
unless  I  myself  am  its  ultimate  origin,  its  absolute  source. 
Choice  is  the  making  of  my  purpose,  the  act  of  my  reason ; 
for  the  very  essence  of  choice  is  to  originate  or  create  rela- 
tions, to  fix  them  as  this  rather  than  that  or  that  rather 
than  this,  first  ideally  in  my  purpose,  and  then  really  in 
my  deed.  My  will  cannot  go  counter  to  my  actual  purpose ; 
my  surroundings  may,  but  not  my  will.  Hence  the  essen- 
tial principle  of  moral  freedom  lies,  not  in  the  will  as  blind 
executive  energy,  but  in  the  creativeness  of  the  reason  as 
"  spontaneous  synthesis  a  priori,"  that  is,  as  the  absolute 
originator  of  those  ethical  relations  in  the  purpose  which, 
effectuated  by  the  will,  render  the  deed  subjectively  right 
or  subjectively  wrong.  Kant's  supreme  error  was  to  ap- 
ply this  principle  of  freedom  or  "spontaneous  synthesis 
a  priori "  to  epistemology,  where  it  has  no  applicability, 
rather  than  to  ethics,  where  it  is  that  free  creativeness 
which  is  the  absolute  condition  of  all  moral  responsibility  j 


{ 


THE   SYLLOGISM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


165 


for  knowledge  of  the  object  is  absolutely  determined  by  its 
immanent  relational  constitution  (that  is,  the  subject  must 
either  know  the  object  as  it  is  in  itself  or  else  not  know 
it  at  all),  while  action  by  the  subject  absolutely  determines 
itself  as  right  or  wrong  according  as  the  subject  does  or 
does  not  subsume  its  particular  purpose  under  universal 
duty.  My  purpose  is  mine,  and  mine  alone ;  it  cannot  be 
formed  for  me,  or  forced  upon  me,  by  any  other  subject 
human  or  divine;  it  can  be  my  purpose  solely  on  condition 
that  I  myself,  not  this  or  that  abstracted  faculty  of  mine, 
but  I  myself  as  an  organic  unit-universal  of  faculties,  freely 
form  or  absolutely  create  it.  In  this  principle  of  moral 
freedom,  conceived  as  my  sole  personal  responsibility  for 
the  formation  of  my  own  purposes,  that  is,  for  the  rational 
creation  of  subjective  relations  which  then  of  necessity 
become  objective  through  the  will  in  a  new  fact  of  Being 
as  my  personal  deed,  lies  the  whole  possibility  of  ethics ; 
and  the  philosophy  which  makes  its  ethics  hinge  on  the 
abstracted  will  as  will,  whether  as  determinism,  or  indeter- 
minism,  is  an  igjio ratio  elenchi.  Certainly  the  will  as  will 
is  determined,  but  by  nothing  except  the  free  purpose  in 
which  I  determine  myself.  "  Motives  "  ?  There  are  neither 
"  motives  "  nor  "  laws  of  motion  "  in  ethics  —  nothing  but 
free  purposes  and  deeds  under  the  Apriori  of  Duty.  In 
determining  myself,  I  may  either  form  my  purpose  by  sub- 
suming it  rationally  under  duty  as  my  major  premise  or 
universal  end,  which  formation  of  it  is  the  moral  syllogism, 
or  I  may  subsume  it  irrationally  under  some  other  and 
lower  end,  which  formation  of  it  is  the  moral  sophism: 
fallacies  and  self-cheats  are  as  easy  in  ethics  as  in  logic. 
But  to  form  my  purpose  both  freely  and  syllogistically,  not 
sophistically,  is  the  highest  law  of  reason,  because  it  is  the 
moral  law  itself.  In  every  situation,  however  transient, 
my  life  involves  some  present  obligation  to  the  others 
among  whom  I  live  and  act,  and  this  obligation  I  incur  not 
voluntarily,  but  necessarily,  under  the  ever-present  Apriori 
of  Duty.    If  I  content  myself  with  the  subsumption  of  my 


166 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  rillLOSOPllY 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


present  purpose  under  my  present  duty  as  each  situation 
occurs,  the  successive  realizations  of  these  momentary  ideals 
through  the  blind  will  is  right  living  in  the  small  empirical 
way.  But  if,  looking  backward  over  the  past  and  inter- 
preting the  future  in  its  light,  I  grasp  my  life  as  a  living 
whole  and  freely  subsume  all  my  single  right  purposes 
under  one  universally  right  life-plan,  as  free  self-identi- 
fication of  my  entire  reason-energy  with  the  omnipresent 
Reason-Energy  of  the  Universe,  that  is,  as  free  self-conse- 
cration and  self-surrender  of  my  limited  personal  being  to 
the  All-Personal  Being,  that  is  right  living  in  the  sublime 
rational  way.  For  in  that  universalized  life-purpose  the 
Syllogism  of  Duty  exalts  itself  to  the  Syllogism  of  Religion, 
in  which  the  major  premise  is  God,  the  minor  premise  is 
Man,  and  the  conclusion,  alike  ontological,  epistemological, 
and  ethical,  is  Real  Religion,  or  living  identity  in  differ- 
ence of  God  and  Man  so  far  as  the  Finite  may  hold  the 
Infinite. 

§  215.  The  foregoing  general  division  of  relations  as 
necessary  and  contingent,  whether  in  ontology,  episte- 
mology,  or  ethics,  contains  already  the  answer  of  critical 
realism  to  the  question,  "  What  is  the  origin  of  relation  as 
such  ?  "     This  answer  is  unavoidably  twofold. 

On  the  one  hand,  necessary  relations  are  immanent  and 
absolute  conditions  of  existence ;  they  have  no  origin  just 
because  they  are  necessary,  that  is,  because  all  origin  as 
such  already  involves,  presupposes,  and  depends  upon  them 
a  priori ;  they  are  what  they  are  simply  because  they 
"  cannot  be  otherwise  " ;  ^  they  constitute  the  ground  of 
possibility  of  all  originated  relations,  but  remain  them- 
selves mere  blank  potentialities  until  realized  in  these  as 
conditions  complied  with ;  they  are  the  Apriori  of  Being. 
Necessary  in  this  sense  are  the  relations  of  extension  or 
extendedness  to  Space,  —  of  protension,  permanence,  or  du- 
ration to  Time,  —  of  substance  or  Energy  to  essence  or 

1  **  Td  8  'ivafKoXoif  ovk  ivdix^rai  dXKus  ^x^iv."  (Arist.  Anal.  Post.  88b. 
31.) 


167 


Reason,  —  and  of  all  particularities,  contingencies,  or  origi- 
nated forms  to  the  universality,  necessity,  and  absolute 
unoriginatedness  of  Form  itself  as  the  Law  of  Unit-Uni- 
versals.  Such  relations  cannot  without  a  fatal  petit io  prin- 
cipii  be  held  to  originate  either  in  empirical  consciousness 
or  in  rational  self-consciousness,  that  is,  either  a  posteriori 
in  the  individual  subject  or  apriori  in  the  universal  subject. 
For  the  very  existence  of  the  subject,  whether  as  individual 
or  universal,  phaenomenal  or  noumenal,  finite  or  infinite,  in- 
volves or  presupposes  the  necessary  form  of  that  existence 
as  an  immanent  relational  constitution,  that  is,  according  to 
Kant  himself,  as  an  "organization  of  reason,"  of  which 
any  and  all  production  of  subjective  relations,  however 
conscious  and  free,  must  still  be  the  organic  functioning. 
This  ontological  principle  of  the  objectivity  or  objective 
apriorisms  of  all  necessary  and  strictly  universal  relations, 
in  opposition  to  that  of  their  exclusively  subjective  origin 
in  "  pure  synthesis  a  prioriy^  and  therefore  in  opposition  to 
the  merely  subjective  apriorism  of  the  Kantian  Erkennt- 
nisstheorie,  is  the  only  possible  foundation  of  a  scientific 
epistemology.  In  brief,  all  actually  existent  necessary 
relations  are  simply  conditions  complied  withy  and  are  rooted 
as  such  in  the  unoriginated  Apriori  of  Being. 

Contingent  relations,  on  the  other  hand,  are  immanent 
and  changeable  forms  of  existence,  and  originate  in  the 
freedom,  purposiveness,  self-activity,  spontaneity,  sponta- 
neous synthesis  a  jjriori,  faculty  of  combination,  or  relat- 
ing power  of  the  subject,  as  identity  in  difference  of  energy 
and  reason.  Under  the  all-conditioning  Apriori  of  Being, 
the  contingent  relations  or  forms  of  existence  originate 
in  the  creativity  of  reason  in  energy  as  the  free  purpose 
of  the  Absolute  Subject.  But,  under  that  all-conditioning 
necessity  and  by  reason  of  it,  all  free  purpose,  that  is,  all 
free  creation  or  selection  of  ends  and  means  to  ends,  is  un- 
conditionally ethical  in  nature,  inasmuch  as  both  ends  and 
means  are  necessarily  determined,  under  the  absolute  a 
priori  category  of  Worth,  as  good  or  bad,  right  or  wrong. 


168 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


Hence  all  exercise  of  freedom  in  the  formation  of  purpose, 
that  is,  all  creativity  of  reason  in  energy  as  giving  to  energy 
itself  the  relational  form  of  ends  or  means,  must  take  place 
or  be  actually  subsumed  under  the  Apriori  of  Being  as  the 
Apriori  of  Duty.  This  is  the  identity  in  difference  of  free- 
dom and  necessity  in  the  Syllogism  of  Being,  by  which 
purpose  is  freely  involved  (principle  of  finality  or  involu- 
tion) and  form  is  necessarily  evolved  (principle  of  causality 
or  evolution)  in  real  existence  as  the  effectuated  idea  or 
fulfilled  purpose,  and  therefore  as  the  ethical  deed  (prin- 
ciple of  ethicality  or  personality).  Briefly,  all  actually 
existent  contingent  relations  are  purposed  effects  or  effected 
purposesy  are  rooted  in  the  Aposteriori  of  Being,  and  origi- 
nate in  the  ethical  freedom  of  the  subject  as  identity  in 
difference  of  energy  and  reason. 

Thus  necessary  relations,  t)r  those  which  "  cannot  be 
otherwise,"  have  no  origin  because  they  are  eternal  condi- 
tions of  all  origin,  and  admit  of  no  explanation  because  all 
explanation  presupposes  them ;  while  contingent  relations, 
or  those  which  "  may  or  may  not  be,"  cannot  come  into 
existence  without  being  determined  to  be,  must  originate 
in  some  cause  or  some  reason,  and  must  be  explained  by 
the  cause  or  the  reason  which  determines  them.  Four  theo- 
ries may  be  propounded,  at  least  nominally,  to  explain  the 
origination  of  contingent  relations. 

I.  Contingent  relations  may  originate  in  Chance,  that  is, 
may  come  into  existence  without  either  cause  or  reason. 
This  theory  has  no  meaning  and  is  a  simple  absurdity. 

II.  Contingent  relations  may  originate  in  Fate  or  Abso- 
lute Unreason,  that  is,  may  come  into  existence  from 
"objectless  will,"  pure  energy  without  form,  pure  cause 
without  reason.  But  purely  caused  relations  would  be 
nothing  but  effects,  and  effects  as  such  are  not  contingent, 
but  necessary.  By  hypothesis,  however,  the  relations  in 
question  are  not  necessary,  but  contingent.  No  contingent 
relation,  therefore,  can  originate  in  Fate.  This  theory  is  a 
simple  self-contradiction. 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


169 


in.  Contingent  relations  may  originate  in  "pure  reason 
a  prioriy^  that  is,  may  come  into  existence  from  pure  form 
without  energy,  pure  reason  without  cause.  But  pure 
reason  without  cause  is  no  cause,  and  can  produce  no  effect. 
The  origination  or  production  of  a  contingent  relation, 
however,  must  be  not  only  a  purpose,  but  also  an  effect, 
and  cannot  come  from  no  cause.  Hence  no  contingent  re- 
lation can  originate  in  "pure  reason  apriorij^  unless  reason 
without  cause  is  reason  with  cause.  This  theory,  too,  is  a 
simple  self-contradiction.^ 

IV.   Contingent  relations  may  originate  in  the  Keal  Free 

^  **  I  may  here  add  a  remark  about  Kant's  view  of  the  content  of  the 
causal  relation.  He  has  not  developed  this  in  a  connected  way.  His 
view  does  not  diverge  far  from  Hume  on  the  one  hand,  and  from  Leibniz 
on  the  other.  Causality  in  the  phenomenal  world  signifies  for  Kant,  as 
for  Hume,  nothing  but  i-egularity  in  the  sequence  of  phenomena.  Real 
causal  efficiency  cannot  of  course  occur  here,  for  phenomena  are  ideational 
products.  As  such  they  can  no  more  produce  an  effect  than  concepts  can. 
But,  as  concepts  logically  determine  one  another,  phenomena  likewise  can 
mutually  determine  their  place  in  space  and  time.  Or,  more  precisely, 
the  place  of  each  one  is  determined  with  relation  to  that  of  all  the  others. 
On  the  other  side,  Kant  conceives  of  the  intelligible  causality  of  things- 
in -themselves,  which  indeed  can  produce  a  real  effect,  after  the  pattern 
of  the  Leibnizian  pre-established  harmony.  The  noumeiia  stand  in  the 
divine  understanding  in  a  relation  which  one  can  designate  as  an  infiuxiis 
idealis.  They  determine  one  another,  like  the  parts  of  a  work  of  art,  with 
logical  and  teleological  necessity."  (F.  Paulsen,  Immanuel  Kant :  his 
Life  and  Doctrine,  tr.  1902,  p.  196.)  This  passage  well  illustrates  the 
impossibility  of  separating  the  inseparable  elements,  causation  and  idea- 
tion,  energy  and  reason.  If  phaenomena  determine  each  other's  place  in 
space  and  time,  they  act  causally  and  produce  an  undeniable  effect ;  if 
noumena  in  the  divine  understanding  determine  each  other's  position  like 
parts  of  a  work  of  art,  they  do  the  same.  In  any  case,  the  influxus  idealis 
becomes  an  infiuxus  realis,  because  it  produces  a  real  effect  and  therefore 
does  the  work  of  real  energy.  In  other  words,  ideation  without  causa- 
tion, "logical  determination"  without  "real  causal  efficiency,"  is  an 
absolute  impossibility  ;  each  of  the  two  is  possible  only  as  conditioned  by 
the  other,  and  the  whole  theory  of  "pure  reason"  and  "pure  thought" 
is  ein  rmtaphysisch^r  T'mMwi,  just  as  much  as  the  theory  of  "  pure  energy," 
or  "nothing  but  mechanical  causality,"  or  "nothing  but  an  infinite  and 
eternal  Energy  whence  all  things  proceed." 


170 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


Subject,  that  is,  may  come  into  existence  from  the  identity 
in  difference  of  form  and  energy,  reason  and  cause,  —  from 
the  Real  I  as  free  formative  activity,  that  is,  relating 
and  realizing  power.  Only  through  the  co-operative  union 
of  these  two  principles,  rationality  as  purpose  and  causality 
as  will,  can  a  real  form  come  into  existence  either  in  Being 
or  in  Thought  as  a  purposed  effect^  and  with  it  all  the  real 
relations  which  constitute  that  form  as  the  free  purpose  ful' 
filled  in  the  deed.  The  origination  of  every  real  form  is  an 
event,  and  every  event  is  a  deed  (1)  of  the  Eternal  Subject 
or  Unoriginated  I  in  the  Course  of  Nature,  or  (2)  of  the  tem- 
poral subject  or  Originated  I  in  the  course  of  human  life. 
Even  the  formation  of  a  free  purpose  requires  will  as  well 
as  reason,  and  so  is  an  ideal  deed  before  the  deed.  All 
contingent  relations,  therefore,  are  purposed  effects,  and 
originate  in  the  Syllogism  of  Being  as  the  formative 
activity,  at  once  dynamical,  logical,  and  ethical,  of  the  Real 
Subject.     This  theory  alone  can  stand. 

§  216.  It  can  now  easily  be  seen  that  the  classification 
of  all  relations  as  either  necessary  or  contingent,  carried 
out  successively  in  ontology,  epistemology,  and  ethics, 
supplies  the  data  for  determining  the  relations  of  the 
three  sciences  of  Being,  Knowing,  and  Doing. 

In  ontology,  the  Syllogism  of  Being  gives  method  and 
form  to  all  reality  and  all  ideality  alike  in  the  Course  of 
Nature  —  to  all  motion  in  the  mechanism,  all  life  in  the 
organism,  all  conscious  action  in  the  person.  The  major 
premise  is  Necessity,  or  the  Apriori  of  Being ;  the  minor  pre- 
mise is  Freedom,  or  the  Aposteriori  of  Being;  and  the 
conclusion,  or  real  identity  in  difference  of  the  two,  is 
Actuality,  or  the  Syllogism  of  Being  itself,  that  is,  the 
actual  origination  of  the  Many  in  the  One  as  the  perpetual 
production  of  new  real  forms  through  the  identity  in  differ- 
ence of  substance  as  energy,  essence  as  reason,  process  as 
evolution  through  involution,  form  of  the  process  as  syllo- 
gism, and  ground  of  the  form  of  the  process  as  the  law 
of  unit-universals.     Thus  the  Syllogism  of  Being  is  the 


\ 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


171 


identity  in  difference  of  necessity  and  freedom,  being  and 
becoming,  the  conditioned  and  the  unconditioned,  or  the 
eternal  unity  of  the  Many  and  the  One  in  the  real  universe 
as  the  Absolute  I. 

In  epistemology,  the  major  premise  is  Reason,  or  the 
Apriori  of  Knowledge  determined  absolutely  by  the  Apriori 
of  Being ;  the  minor  premise  is  Experience,  or  the  Aposte- 
riori of  Knowledge  determined  by  the  Aposteriori  of  Being 
as  either  true  or  false ;  and  the  conclusion,  or  real  identity 
in  difference  of  the  two,  is  Science,  or  the  Syllogism  of 
Knowledge  itself,  that  is,  the  actual  origination  of  the 
Many  in  the  One  as  the  perpetual  production  of  new  real 
cognitions  in  the  growth  of  science  through  its  governing 
principle  that  knoivledge  is  determined  by  existence.  In 
other  words,  the  understanding  must  conform  its  percept- 
concept  to  the  real  relations  of  the  thing  understood,  or 
else  the  thing  must  be  misunderstood  and  the  understand- 
ing must  be  determined  as  sheer  misunderstanding ;  noth- 
ing is  known  or  can  be  known  but  the  thing-iu-itself,  as 
identity  in  difference  of  noumenon  and  phaenomenon;  if 
the  thing-in -itself  were  unknowable,  such  a  fortiori  would 
be  the  thing-out-of- itself ;  "  phaenomena  alone  "  are  nothing 
but  thiugs-out-of -themselves  as  mere  sensations-in-the-sub- 
ject,  mere  sensible  appearances  without  intelligible  rela- 
tions or  noumenal  forms  in  themselves,  and  therefore  cannot 
be  known,  because  they  cannot  exist  except  as  ignes  fatui 
of  a  pseudo-epistemology.  Hence  the  determination  of 
knowledge  by  existence,  that  is,  the  principle  of  scientific 
objectivism,  is  the  necessary  logical  condition  of  the  possi- 
bility of  epistemology  itself  as  a  science,  and  the  Syllogism 
of  Knowledge  is  the  Syllogism  of  Thought  as  determined 
by  the  Syllogism  of  Being. 

In  ethics,  the  major  premise  is  Justice,  or  the  Apriori  of 
Duty  determined  by  the  Apriori  of  Being ;  the  minor  pre- 
mise is  Free  Purpose,  or  the  Aposteriori  of  Duty  deter- 
mined by  the  Aposteriori  of  Being  as  either  just  or  unjust, 
good  or  bad,  right  or  wrong;  and  the  conclusion,  or  real 


172 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


identity  in  difference  of  the  two,  is  Character,  or  the  Syllo- 
gism of  Duty  itself,  in  its  highest  form  the  Syllogism  of 
Religion,  that  is,  the  actual  origination  of  the  Many  in  the 
One  as  the  perpetual  production  of  new  real  deeds,  right  or 
wrong,  in  the  growth  of  personal  character  and  national 
civilization  through  their  governing  principle  that  free  ac- 
tion  determines  existence.  That  is,  the  free  I  both  thinks 
and  wills,  but  can  neither  think  without  willing  nor  will 
without  thinking;  every  free  deed  (and  the  free  purpose 
itself  is  an  ideal  deed)  is  the  real  identity  in  difference  of 
energy  and  reason,  a  purposed  effect  of  free  action,  and  in 
itself,  therefore,  has  a  nature  at  once  ontological,  logical, 
and  ethical,  as  identity  in  difference  of  necessity  and  free- 
dom ;  the  free  deed  comes  into  existence  both  for  a  purjjose 
(reason)  and  from  a  cause  (energy  as  will),  and  its  freedom 
lies  in  the  rational  creation  of  the  relational  purpose  as 
right  or  wrong;  the  free  deed  is  identity  in  difference  of 
involution,  or  inflow  of  the  purpose  into  the  deed,  and  evo- 
lution, or  outflow  of  the  deed  from  the  purpose,  and  takes 
its  place  thereby  in  the  Course  of  Nature  as  a  particular 
Syllogism  of  Being.  Hence  every  free  deed  is  a  change  or 
new  determination  of  the  relations  or  forms  of  existence 
which  is  wrought  by  the  free  action  of  the  I  as  the  real 
force  in  Nature.  An  obscure  consciousness  of  this  imma- 
nent relational  constitution  of  the  free  deed  betrays  itself 
in  such  common  expressions  as  "the  ethics  of  the  intellect," 
"  the  logic  of  events  in  history,"  and  so  forth.  Since  the 
course  of  Nature  is  the  eternal  free  deed  of  the  Absolute  I, 
the  moral  law  is  the  bed-rock  of  the  real  universe,  and 
human  understanding  of  that  law  measures  the  reach  of 
human  knowledge.  Hence  the  determination  of  existence 
by  free  action,  that  is,  the  same  principle  of  scientific  ob- 
jectivism, is  the  necessary  logical  condition  of  the  possi- 
bility of  ethics  itself  as  a  science;  and  the  Syllogism  of 
Duty,  exalted  to  the  Syllogism  of  Religion,  is  again  the 
Syllogism  of  Thought  as  determined  by  the  Syllogism  of 
Being. 


■ 


THE  SYLLOGISM  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


173 


So  considered,  then,  the  three  fundamental  sciences  of 
ontology,  epistemology,  and  ethics  evidently  stand  related 
to  each  other  as  a  syllogism  of  syllogisms,  in  which  ontol- 
ogy is  the  major  premise,  epistemology  the  minor  premise, 
and  ethics  the  conclusion.  This  is  the  Syllogism  of  Phi- 
losophy, the  conditioning  ground  of  knowledge  of  the  Syllo- 
gisms of  Thought,  of  Knowledge,  of  Duty,  and  of  Religion  ; 
but  it  needs  explication. 

§  217.  Being  is  the  necessary  existence  of  the  thing-in- 
itself  as  the  real  universe,  the  unit-universal  as  summum 
genus  or  f/enus  generum.  Knowing  is  thinking  the  thing- 
in-itself  as  the  object,  the  unit-universal  as  species.  Doing 
is  making  the  thing-in-itself  as  a  new  action,  the  unit- 
universal  as  specimen.  Hence  Doing,  in  the  free  deed  or 
purposed  effect,  is  actual  subsumption  of  the  specimen  under 
the  genus  through  the  species,  that  is,  its  actual  emergence 
into  existence  in  Space  and  Time  as  dynamical  subsump- 
tion of  a  New  Action  under  Being  through  Knowing; 
which  is  the  identity  in  difference  of  Being  and  Knowing 
in  Doing.  This  clearly  defines  the  general  relation  of 
Being,  Knowing,  and  Doing,  as  the  Syllogism  of  Being; 
and  therefore  of  ontology,  epistemology,  and  ethics,  as  the 
Syllogism  of  Philosophy. 

How  vast  is  the  scope  and  how  profound  the  significance 
of  this  principle  will  be  evident  on  a  little  reflection ;  for 
it  reveals  itself  as  the  principle  of  Individuation  through 
Genesis,  that  is,  the  law  of  all  Becoming,  the  eternal 
Apriori  of  Being  by  which  the  Universe  of  Being  exists  in 
itself  as  a  Universe  of  Doing  because  it  is  a  Universe  of 
Knowing  —  because  Knowing  is  the  only  possible  middle 
term  which  can  mediate  syllogistically  between  Being  and 
Doing  —  because  Intelligence  is  the  only  possible  means  by 
which  the  Universal  can  particularize  itself  in  individuals, 
or  the  One  involve  and  evolve  itself  in  the  Many.  Hence 
the  Syllogism  of  Philosophy  is  the  demonstration  of  God, 
not  as  Spirit  which  is  "separate"  from  Nature,  not  as 
Spirit  which  "alienates  itself"  in  Nature,  but  as  the  iden- 


174 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


tity  in  difference  of  Spirit  and  Nature  —  the  Absolute  1 
whose  substance  is  Energy,  whose  essence  is  Reason,  and 
whose  life  is  that  free  ethical  process  of  Evolution  through 
Involution  which  eternally  realizes  the  eternal  ideal  in  the 
Syllogism  of  Being,  or  the  Cosmic  Process  as  itself  Spirit- 
ual Life. 


I 


CHAPTER  XVII 

PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AS  DLALECTIC 

§  218.  The  last  chapter  exhibits  the  transparent  neces- 
sity of  a  thorough  reform  in  philosophical  method.  So  far 
as  philosophy  can  be  said  to  have  a  settled  method  (which 
in  fact  is  rendered  impossible  by  the  epistemology  founded 
on  the  self -contradictory  principle  of  the  absolute  relativity 
of  knowledge  and  the  Kantian  doctrine  that  we  can  know 
phaenomena  alone),  it  offers  nothing  but  various  distortions 
of  Syllogistic.  Empiricism  relies  on  pure  induction,  recog- 
nizes only  particular  and  contingent  relations,  and  thereby 
invalidates  the  major  premise,  which  must  be  at  least  as- 
sumed as  universal  and  necessary,  or  else  the  conclusion 
will  not  necessarily  follow.  Rationalism  relies  on  pure 
deduction,  recognizes  only  universal  and  necessary  rela- 
tions, and  thereby  invalidates  the  minor  premise,  in  which 
perception  of  singulars  must  be  at  least  assumed  to  furnish 
actual  knowledge  of  the  particular  and  contingent,  or  else 
the  conclusion  will  have  no  actual  content.  From  the 
absolute  necessity  of  the  case,  however,  no  reasoned  work 
(and  all  philosophical  works  at  least  profess  to  be  reasoned) 
ever  yet  adhered  rigorously  and  consistently  either  to  the 
method  of  pure  induction  or  to  that  of  pure  deduction :  all 
such  works  hitherto,  so  far  as  we  know  them,  exhibit  an 
unavoidable  yet  logically  ruinous  inconsistency  in  this 
point  of  method,  because  neither  pure  induction  nor  pure 
deduction  can  be  at  all  possible,  so  long  as  the  syllogism 
itself  remains  the  actual  identity  in  difference  of  induction 
and  deduction,  contingency  and  necessity,  experience  and 
reason.  For  deduction  is  reading  the  syllogism  forward 
from  genus  through  species  to  specimen,  while  induction 


176 


THE   SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


)   I   ' 


is  reading  it  backward  from  specimen  through  species  to 
genus.  Nothing  but  theoretical  recognition  of  these  truths, 
embodied  in  undeviating  practical  observance  of  them,  will 
ever  prevent  the  methodological  confusion  which  has  itself 
prevented  philosophy  thus  far  from  becoming  the  estab- 
lished scientia  scientlarum ;  for  this  methodological  con- 
fusion, rooted  in  epistemological  confusion,  results  from 
the  doctrine  that  no  human  knowledge  is  absolute,  but  all 
human  knowledge  is  relative  —  that  doctrine  of  tlie  absolute 
relativity  of  human  knowledge  which  is,  perhaps,  the  most 
astonishing  contradiction  in  terms  ever  yet  perpetrated 
ostensibly  in  the  name  of  reason.  If  there  is  any  logical 
necessity  in  the  syllogistic  conclusion,  it  constitutes  an 
absolute  element  in  human  knowledge. 

Beyond  the  vast  marshland  of  all  these  modern  confu- 
sions rises  the  white  peak  of  Aristotle's  discovery  that  the 
necessary  and  absolute  form  of  all  thought  as  thought,  and 
therefore  of  all  true  thought  as  knowledge  of  Being,  is  the 
syllogism.  Not  "Retreat  to  Kant,"  but  "Retreat  to  Aris- 
totle," must  be  the  watchword  of  methodological  reform  — 
not  at  all  to  remain  with  Aristotle,  but  to  make  from  his 
immortal  discovery  a  true  advance  in  the  light  of  all  sub- 
sequent investigation,  above  all  of  Darwinism,  with  its 
discovery  of  the  knowable  individual  difference.  Aristotle 
failed  to  discover  the  magnitude  of  his  own  discovery; 
he  failed  to  perceive  that  the  syllogism  is  the  necessary 
form,  not  only  of  all  Thought,  but  of  all  Being  as  well ;  he 
failed  to  perceive  that  the  syllogism  vmst  he  the  form  of 
thought  solely  because  it  is  the  form  of  Being  and  because  it 
cannot  be  otherwise  (Apriori  of  Being).  These  absolute 
grounds  of  his  doctrine  of  Syllogistic  were  hidden  from  him 
by  his  own  Aristotelian  Paradox :  namely,  that  the  uni- 
versal inheres  in  the  individual  and  the  individual  does 
not  inhere  at  all  in  the  universal,  and  that  the  individual 
difference  is  unknowable  because  all  the  individuals  or 
specimens  of  one  species,  containing  only  one  and  the 
same  immutable  universal,  are  totally  indistinguishable 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AS  DIALECTIC 


177 


; 


(o/xota,  d8ta<^opa).  From  these  premises  it  follows,  of 
course,  that  the  syllogism  cannot  account  for  the  origina- 
tion of  the  individual  through  sex  —  cannot  be,  therefore, 
the  principle  of  Individuation  through  Genesis  —  cannot 
be,  therefore,  the  Syllogism  of  Being  as  well  as  of  Thought. 
The  untruth  of  those  premises,  however,  and  the  truth  of 
the  law  of  unit-universals  as  re-formation  of  the  Aristo- 
telian Paradox  by  means  of  the  Darwinian  principle  of  the 
knowable  individual  difference,  have  been  clearly  shown 
already,  and  need  not  detain  us  here. 

§  219.  Independently  of  Syllogistic,  no  formal  method 
of  thought  has  been  wrought  out  in  philosophy  with  scien- 
tific precision  other  than  Dialectic.^  Sokrates  and  Plato  at 
first  conceived  it  as  simply  question  and  answer  in  argu- 
mentation or  dialogue  (StaXtyco-^at)  .*  Fichte's  bold  and 
original  conception  of  it  (doubtless  suggested  by  Kant's 
antinomies)  as  the  immanent,  self-perpetuating  process  of 
thought  itself  as  thesis,  antithesis,  and  synthesis,  in  which 
the  synthesis  itself  becomes  a  new  thesis  for  a  new  antith- 
esis, and  so  on, — a  method  employed  also  by  Schelling, 

—  was  still  further  developed  by  Hegel  into  a  similar 
triadic  movement  of  the  self-determining  Begriff  as  posi- 
tion, negation,  and  negation  of  negation  as  new  position 

—  a  process  of  affirmation  and  double  negation  which,  as 
the  "absolute  negativity"  or  principle  oi  productive  coii- 

1  *'  Der  Ruhm  jedocli  bleibt  dem  Sokratiker  Aristoteles  ungeschni alert, 
dass  in  dem  Verlaufe  der  ganzen  abeudlandischen  Culturgeschichte  keine 
Logik,  ohne  alle  Ausnahmo,  sich  der  artistotelischen  auch  nur  an  die  Seite 
stellen  darf."  (C.  Prantl,  Geschichte  der  Logik  im  Abendlande,  I.  27)  — 
("  Andrerseits  wird  uns  ein  Gegenstand  wahrer  Bewunderung  sein,  mit 
welch  grossartiger  Conception  Aristoteles  eine  Logik  entfalte,  welche  den 
tiefsten  Kern  des  allgemein-menschlichen  Denkens  iiberhaupt  —  nicht  bloss 
des  griechischen  Denkens  —  richtig  trifft  und  zugleich  im  unlosbarsten 
Zusammenhange  rait  der  gesammten  Speculation  ihres  Urhebers  steht. 
...  da  in  dem  ganzen  Verlaufe  unserer  abend landischen  Cultur  bis  zum 
heutigen  Tage  die  aristotelische  Logik  ausser  der  Hegel'schen  die  einzig 
philosophisch-wissenschaftliche  ist."     (Ibid.  I.  87.) 

*  T6v  5'  ipunSLv  Kal  diroKplveadai  iTriaTdfievov  &\\o  ri  <ri>  /caXcts  1j  SidKeicTi' 
Kbv  ;  (Crat.  390  C.     Quoted  by  Prantl,  I.  68,  footnote.) 

VOL.    II.  —  12 


178 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AS  DIALECTIC 


179 


tradtction,  constitutes  the  essential  nature  and  life  of  all 
thought  as  thought,  the  eternal  pure  self-thinking  of  the 
Idea,  or  vdi/o-ts  vorj<T€m.  Instead  of  conceding,  as  is  required 
by  the  Aristotelian  logic,  the  finality  of  either  one  or  the 
other  of  two  contradictory  judgments,  one  as  necessarily 
true  and  the  other  as  necessarily  false,  Hegel  pours  scorn 
on  this  "either  — or"  of  the  "reflective  understanding,"* 
and  in  the  name  of  the  higher  logic  of  the  "speculative 
reason  "  treats  them  both  as  relatively  true,  but  absolutely 
false,  finding  their  real  truth  only  in  their  combination, 
concretion,  or  "negative  unity," — both  of  them  being  sub- 

1  •'  Es  ist  diess  [d.  h.  das  Dogmatische]  iiberhaupt  das  strenge  Enlweder- 
Oder  und  es  heisst  demgeniass  z.  B.  die  Welt  ist  entweder  endlich  oder 
unendlich,  aber  nur  eines  von  beiden.  Das  Wahrhafte,  das  Si)ekulative 
ist  dagegen  gerade  dieses,  welches  keine  solche  einseitige  Bestimmung  an 
sich  hat  und  dadurch  nicht  erschopft  wird,  sondern  als  Totalitat  diejeni- 
gen  Bestimniungen  in  sich  vereinigt  enthalt,  welche  dem  Dogmatismua 
in  ihrer  Trennung  als  ein  Festes  und  Wahres  gelten."  (EucykloiMidie, 
Logik,  Werke,  VL  68.) —  "In  solchen  Ausschliessungen  selbst  giebt  sich 
sogleich  der  genannte  Standpuukt  als  ein  Zuriickfallen  in  den  nietaphysi- 
schen  Verstand  kund,  in  das  Entweder  —  Oder  desselben,"  u.  s.  w.  {Ibid. 
VL  133.)  —  **  Es  ist  die  Weise  der  Jugend  sich  in  Abstractionen  henimzu- 
werfen,  wohingegen  der  lebenserfahrene  Mensch  sich  auf  das  abstrakte 
Entweder  —  Oder  nicht  einlasst,  sondern  sich  an  das  Konkrete  halt." 
{Ibid.  VI.  151.)  —  "Der  Satz  des  ausgeschlossenen  Dritten  ist  der  Satz 
des  bestimmten  Verstandes,  der  den  Widerspruch  von  sich  abhalten  will, 
und  indem  er  es  thut,  denselben  begeht.  A  soil  entweder  +  A  oder  —  A 
seyn  ;  damit  ist  schon  das  Dritte,  das  A  ausgesprochen,  welches  wecUr  + 
noch  —  ist,  und  tlas  eben  sowohl  auch  als  +  A  und  als  —  A  gesetzt  ist." 
{Ibid.  VL  238.)  Any  schoolboy  would  know  that  A  and  +  A  are  the 
same :  that  the  -|-  is  always  understood  unless  the  —  is  expressed.  Such 
argumentation  is  worthy  only  of  Euthydemus  or  Dionysodorus,  and  exhib- 
its Dialectic  as  pure  Sophistic.  —  "  Es  giebt  in  der  That  nirgends,  weder 
im  Himmel  noch  auf  Erden,  weder  in  der  geistigen  noch  in  der  natiirlichen 
Welt,  ein  so  abstraktes  Entweder  —  Oder,  wie  der  Verstand  solches  be- 
hauptet."  {Ibid.  VL  242.)  Sokrates  expresses  none  too  pungently  the 
verdict  of  every  reasoning  mind  on  disregard  of  the  law  of  excluded 
middle,  when  he  characterizes  it  as  "the  mark  of  a  trifler  :*'  "Ouroj  y6.p 
ifjLol  <paLv€rai  tA  ivavrla  \4yeuf  airrbs  iavrtp  iv  t^  ypatfty,  Cxrirtp  Ai»  el  etiroi' 
'A5(K6(  liUKpdrrii  deo^s  oi)  vofu^u>v,  dXXd  Oeoifs  yofxl^uv,  Kal  rot  tovt6  iffti 
iral^ovTos."     (Plat.  Apol.  Soc.  cap.  xiv.) 


i 


lated,  annulled,  cancelled,  reconciled,  carried  up,  absorbed, 
or  concreted  (aufgehohen)  in  that  higher  "  moment "  or  term 
which  is  to  serve  as  at  once  the  last  of  one  triad  and  the 
first  of  the  next.  The  very  essence  of  reason  as  the  Idea's 
self-evolution  is  eternal  but  productive  self-contradiction : 
there  is  no  "  absolute  truth "  other  than  the  dialectic 
process  itself  as  Absolute  Logic,  Speculative  Philosophy,  or 
the  whole  system  of  self-evolving  and  self-dissolving  views. 
In  the  sphere  of  Being,  the  game  goes  on  as  (1)  Position 
or  Immediacy,  (2)  Negation  or  Mediation,  and  (3)  Nega- 
tion of  Negation,  New  Position,  or  Self-Mediation ;  in  the 
sphere  of  Essence,  as  (1)  Keflection  in  Another  and  (2) 
Reflection  in  Self;  and,  in  the  sphere  of  the  Notion,  as 
the  one  ceaseless  self-returning  movement  of  the  Notion 
itself  {die  absolute  Negatwitdt  oder  Bewegung  des  Begriffs)^ 
or  the  self-knowledge  and  self-determination  of  the  Specu- 
lative Idea  as  the  One  Totality  {das  Erkenncn,  dassdle  Idee 
die  Eine  Totalitat  ist).  Hegel  confesses  that  "the  interest 
lies  in  the  whole  motion  "  —  a  sea  of  forms  as  restless,  as 
fleeting,    and  as   barren   as   the   waves  of  Homer's   dA.os 

aTpvycToto. 

§  220.  The  issue  between  Syllogistic  and  Dialectic, 
therefore,  condenses  itself  into  a  brief  question:  Dor^ 
demonstration  demonstrate  ^  That  is,  does  the  syllogistic 
must  exist  ?  Is  the  syllogism  valid  or  invalid  ?  Does  the 
conclusion,  if  the  premises  are  sound  or  conceded  to  be 
sound,  follow  with  a  necessity  which  is  final,  apodeictic, 

1  Encyklopadie,  Logik,  Werke,  VI.  408-414  ;  Philosophic  des  Geistes, 
Werke,  VII,  ii.  19,  20.  —  "Die  Einsicht,  dass  die  Natur  des  Denkens 
selbst  die  Dialektik  ist,  dass  es  als  Verstand  in  das  Negative  seiner  selbst, 
in  den  Widerspruch,  gerathen  muss,  macht  eine  Hauptseite  der  Logik  aus." 
(Logik,  Werke,  VI.  17.)  —  "Die  Dialektik  dagegen  ist  diess  imtnanente 
Hinausgehen,  worin  die  Einseitigkeit  und  Beschriinktheit  der  Verstandes- 
bestimmungen  sich  als  das,  was  sie  ist,  namlich  als  ihre  Negation,  darstellt. 
Alles  Endliche  ist  diess,  sich  selbst  aufzuheben.  Das  Dialektische  macht 
daher  die  bewegende  Seele  des  wissenschaftlichen  Fortgehens  aus,"  u.  s.  w. 
{Ibid.  VI.  152.)  —  "In  der  That  ist  das  Denken  wesentlich  die  Negation 
eines  unmittelbar  Vorhandenen."    {Ibid.  VI.  19.) 


180 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AS  DIALECTIC 


181 


absolute  ?  In  Chapter  XII  we  saw  that  the  absolute  must 
is  the  essence  of  the  syllogism,  which  derives  its  subjective 
necessity  from  objective  necessity  as  the  nature  of  things 
or  the  eternal  conditions  of  existence,  that  is,  from  the 
Apriori  of  Being.  But  Hegel,  while  conceding  the  truth 
of  the  conclusion  of  the  syllogism  as  contingent  or  relative, 
repudiates  it  as  necessary  or  absolute;  for  both  the  con- 
clusion and  its  contradictory  are  equally  true  or  equally 
false,  and  the  contradiction  itself  disappears  and  becomes 
relative  truth  itself,  when  the  two  contradictories  are  con- 
creted or  aafgehohen  in  their  "  negative  unity  '*  as  a  "  new 
position." 

This  principle  of  "  absolute  negativity  "  lays  the  axe  at 
the  root  of  the  syllogism  as  apodeictic  necessity ;  if  it  is 
tenable,  demonstration  does  not  demonstrate.  The  Aris- 
totelian logic  means  that  contradiction  is  the  clashing  of 
truth  and  error,  knowledge  and  ignorance,  in  human 
thought,  but  cannot  exist  in  Being,  —  that,  of  two  contra- 
dictory judgments  one  must  be  true  and  the  other  false  in 
fact  (laws  of  Contradiction,  Excluded  Middle,  and  Iden- 
tity). But  the  Hegelian  logic  means  that  contradiction 
alone  produces  truth,  —  that  thought  is  the  only  Being  as 
"Substance,"  and  that  truth  is  nothing  whatever  but  the 
agreement  of  thought  with  its  own  reality,^  —  that  the 
agreement  of  thought  with  itself  is  nothing  whatever  but 
the  absorption  or  concretion  of  two  contradictories  in  their 
"negative  unity,"  —  and  that  this  merely  relative  truth  of 
the  "  negative  unity  "  instantly  dissolves  and  disappears  in 
the  new  contradiction  it  generates.     That  is,  the  pure  pro- 

1  **  Das  Denken,  wie  est  die  Substanz  der  ausserlichen  Dinge  ausmacht, 
ist  aiich  die  allgemeine  Substanz  des  Geistigen."  (Encyklopadie,  "Werke, 
VI.  46).  —  "Die  logische  Idee.  .  .  ist  die  absolute  Substanz  des  Geistes 
wie  der  Natur,  das  Allgemeine,  Alldurchdringende."  {Ihid.  VI.  353.)  — 
"Aus  diesem  Urtheil  ist  es,  dass  die  Idee  z  nachst  nur  die  Eine,  allge- 
meine Substanz  ist,  aber  ihre  entwickelte  wahrhafte  Wirklichkeit  ist,  dass 
sie  als  Subjekt  und  so  als  Geist  ist."  {Ibid,  VI.  385).  —  "  Wahrheit  heisst 
eben  Uebereinstimmung  des  Begriffs  mit  seiuer  Wirklichkeit."  {Ibid»  VIL 
ii.  U.) 


• 


ductivity  of  contradiction  means  the  absolute  relativity  of 
knowledge ;  and  this  principle  is  repudiation  of  the  syllo- 
gism as  apodeicticity  or  demonstration.  Hegel's  denial 
of  the  "either  —  or"  as  apodeictic  necessity  or  demonstra- 
tive certainty  is  unequivocal  and  avowed  denial  of  the  law 
of  excluded  middle;  and  his  forthputting  of  the  "negative 
unity  "  as  a  concretion  and  real  reconciliation  of  two  con- 
tradictories is  undeniable  presentation  of  it  as  a  middle 
which  is  not  excluded.  If  Dialectic  could  make  good  this 
prodigious  claim,  it  would  be  the  total  overthrow  of  Syl- 
logistic in  the  name  of  "absolute  negativity,"  that  is, 
the  absolute  relativity  of  human  knowledge.  To  be  sure, 
absolute  relativity  is  a  contradiction  in  terms;  but  what 
would  that  defence  avail  against  one  to  whom  contradic- 
tion is  the  very  essence  of  reason?  Syllogistic  cannot 
defend  itself  by  begging  the  question  of  Excluded  Middle, 
or  stolidly  reasserting  the  point  at  issue;  it  can  only 
defend  itself  by  attacking  the  cardinal  principle  of  Dialec- 
tic and  exposing  it  as  in  reality  nothing  but  Sophistic. 

This  cardinal  principle  of  Dialectic  is  the  "absolute 
negativity  "  itself  —  the  principle  of  the  pure  productive- 
ness of  cofitradlctio7i  as  double  negation  —  the  principle  that 
double  negation  of  a  jjositlon  is  itself  a  new  position  ;  and  it 
is  precisely  this  principle  that  Syllogistic  most  vigorously 
and  emphatically  denies.  How  it  came  into  existence  is 
plain  enough.  HegePs  fundamental  position  is  that  "  every 
true  philosophy  is  idealism,"*  that  is,  absolute  idealism; 
and  the  principle  of  absolute  idealism  is  that  nothing  exists 
but  ideas,  as  endlessly  appearing  and  disappearing  self- 
determinations  in  the  motion  of  The  Idea  —  in  Hegel's 
wording  of  it:  "Thought,  as  it  constitutes  the  Substance 
of  external  things,  is  also  the  universal  Substance  of  the 
spiritual;"  "The  Logical  Idea  is  the  absolute  Substance 
of  the  Spirit  as  of  Nature ; "  "  The  Idea  at  first  is  only  the 
one  universal  Substance,  but  its  true  and  developed  reality 
is  that  it  exists  as  Subject,  and  so  as  Spirit; "  and  so  forth. 
1  EncyklopacUe,  Logik,  Werke,  VI.  189. 


182 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


I 


Thought,  then,  must  be  "pure,"  that  is,  pure  from  Experi- 
ence, which  is  its  only  possible  "impurity;"  absolute 
idealism  must  be  reines  Denken,  From  this  fundamental 
idealistic  position  it  follows  inevitably  that  the  "  reflective 
understanding,"  whose  instrument  is  the  syllogism  alone, 
with  its  "  either  —  or  "  and  its  law  of  excluded  middle,  must 
be  subordinated  to  the  "speculative  reason,"  whose  instru- 
ment must  be  something  higher  and  purer  than  the  syllo- 
gism. For  the  syllogism  necessarily  involves  experience 
in  the  minor  premise,  and  is  unfitted  thereby  for  being  the 
instrument  of  "pure  thought"  or  absolute  idealism;  the 
major  premise,  as  supplying  the  universal,  is  as  pure  as  it 
is  possible  for  Thought  to  be,  but  the  minor  premise,  as 
supplying  the  particular  or  the  individual,  is  radically 
impure.^  If  absolute  idealism  is  possible,  therefore,  its 
possibility  depends  upon  its  ability  to  dispense  with  the 
syllogism  and  to  devise  an  instrument  of  "  pure  thinking  " 
which  shall  absolutely  exclude  all  "empirical  impurity." 

It  is  HegePs  supreme  greatness  as  a  thinker  to  have 
discerned  this  necessity  and  to  have  met  it  by  developing 
Fichte's  conception  into  the  purely  rational  method  of 
Dialectic  as  Absolute  Negativity.  For  the  dialectical 
triad  seems  to  move  exclusively  in  the  rational  or  pure 
element  of  the  major  premise;  pure  reason  posits  the  ab- 
stract universal,  pure  reason  negates  the  same  universal, 
and  pure  reason,  negating  its  own  negation,  thereby  creates 
a  new  position  as  the  concrete  universal,  all  without  quit- 
ting the  sphere  of  the  universal  or  borrowing  anything 
from  the  empirical  spheres  of  the  particular  or  the  indi- 
vidual, as  the  syllogism  must  in  the  minor  premise  and 
the  conclusion.  The  purity  seems  perfect.  If  this  sem- 
blance is  no  illusion,  —  if  the  third  moment  of  the  triad, 

1  **  Ein  Schluss  kann  ohne  die  Beziehung  des  Allgemeinen  auf  das 
Besondere  nicht  begriffen  werden."  (A.  Trendelenburg,  Logische  Unter- 
suchungen,  I.  25.)  As  reason  deals  with  the  universal  and  experience 
with  the  particular,  this  statement  expresses  the  necessary  constitution  of 
the  syllogism  as  identity  in  difference  of  reason  and  experience. 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AS  DIALECTIC  183 

simply  in  virtue  of  being  a  "negation  of  negation,"  is  ipso 
facto  a  new  position  in  advance  of  the  first,  —  Dialectic 
establishes  itself  impregnably  as  the  method  of  the  higher 
or  speculative  reason,  apparently  superior  to  Syllogistic  as 
the  method  of  the  reflective  understanding.  Are  these 
conditions  fulfilled? 

§  221.  Let  us  seek  our  answer  to  this  question  in  Hegel's 
first  example,  and  for  the  sake  of  perfect  fairness  state  this 
in  his  own  language.  We  refer  once  for  all  to  the  "  Logic  " 
of  the  "Encyclopaedia,"  preserving  his  own  italics. 

«  Pure  Being  makes  the  beginning,  because  it  is  pure  Thought  as 
well  as  the  undetermined  simple  Immediate ;  but  the  first  begin- 
ning can  be  nothing  that  is  mediated  and  further  determined." 

"  This  pure  Being  \spure  Abstraction,  hence  the  absolutely-negative, 
which,  likewise  taken  immediately,  is  Nothing.'* 

"  Nothing,  as  this  self-equal  Immediate,  is  likewise,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  same  that  Being  is.  The  truth  of  Being,  like  that  of 
Nothing,  is  therefore  the  unity  of  the  two ;  this  unity  is  Becoming:'' 

«  Being,  as  one  with  Nothing,  and  Nothing,  as  one  with  Being, 
equally  vanish  in  Becoming;  through  this  contradiction  in  itself. 
Becoming  eventuates  as  the  unity  in  which  the  two  elements  are 
concreted  (aufgehoben) ;  its  result,  therefore,  is  Existence.'* 

«  Existence  is  Being  with  a  determinateness,  which,  as  immediate 
or  existent  determinateness,  is  Quality.  Existence  as  reflected  into 
itself  m  this  its  determinateness  is  an  Existent,  Something:' 

Here  we  have  Hegel's  account  of  the  origination  of  the 
Many  in  the  One,  his  principle  of  individuation  as  "abso- 
lute negativity,"  that  is,  the  absolute  creation  of  Some- 
thing {Etwas)  out  of  Nothing  {Seyn  =  Nichts)  through  the 
pure  productivity  of  Contradiction  (Widerspnich).  The 
principle  of  the  ancients  that  "nothing  becomes  from 
nothing,  something  becomes  only  from  something,"  Hegel 
lightly,  if  not  flippantly,  dismisses  as  "the  principle  of 
the  eternity  of  matter,  of  pantheism,"  and  substitutes  for 
it  his  own  principle  that  "Being  goes  over  into  Nothing, 
Nothing  goes  over  into  Being  "  (dass  das  Seyn  das  Ueber- 
gehen  in  Nichts,  und  das  Nichts  das  Uebergehen  ins  Seyn 


184 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


III 


ist).  To  the  question,  "  What  goes  over  ?  "  Hegel  has  no 
possible  answer:  if  pure  Being  is  absolute  Nothing  and 
absolute  Nothing  is  pure  Being,  Nothing  goes  over  to  Noth- 
ing—  that  is,  there  is  no  possible  what  to  go  over  from 
one  to  the  other.  If  he  should  answer  that  Thought  is  a 
possible  ivhat,  that  Being  and  Nothing  are  both  Pure 
Thoughts,  and  that,  in  the  Uebergehen,  Pure  Thought  goes 
over  from  itself  to  itself,  the  double  retort  is  necessary: 
(1)  that  this  answer  is  exactly  what  he  himself  discredits, 
in  case  of  the  ancients  and  their  just  quoted  maxim,  as 
"  only  the  proposition  of  the  abstract  identity  of  the  under- 
standing," which  "in  fact  abolishes  Becoming,  for  that 
which  becomes  and  that  from  which  it  becomes  are  one  and 
the  same; "  and  (2)  that  the  concession  thus  made,  namely, 
that  Being  and  Nothing  are  both  Pure  Thoughts,  destroys 
at  once  his  own  original  position  that  they  are  empty 
or  undetermined  abstractions  {leere  Ahstraktionen)y  for  it 
definitely  determines  each  of  the  two  as  Thought  in  oppo- 
sition to  Experience  and  to  Matter,  Such  an  answer,  of 
course,  would  be  no  answer.  The  thesis  of  the  pure  pro- 
ductivity of  contradiction  in  the  creation  of  Sometliing  out 
of  Nothing  would  not,  then,  be  helped  in  the  least  by  beg- 
ging the  question,  and  presupposing  Thought,  that  is,  a 
Determined  Being  which  is  7iot  Nothing^  as  the  false  Noth- 
ing out  of  which  absolute  idealism  creates  its  false  Some- 
thing as  mere  idea. 

§  222.  But  Syllogistic  does  not  need  to  win  a  victory  by 
merely  turning  the  guns  of  Dialectic  against  itself.  It 
fundamentally  denies  that  double  negation  of  any  position 
is  itself  a  new  position;  it  denies  the  pure  productivity  of 
contradiction  in  any  case  or  in  any  form,  repudiates  the 
principle  of  "absolute  negativity,"  together  with  the  dia- 
lectical method  which  is  its  application,  and  exposes 
Dialectic  as  absolute  Sophistic.  For,  whatever  may  be 
posited  as  A,  negation  of  it  negates  nothing  but  A  and 
produces  nothing  but  — A;  similarly,  negation  of— A  ne- 
gates nothing  but  —A,  and  produces  nothing  but  —(—A). 


\\l 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AS  DIALECTIC  185 

• 

But  —(—A)  is  and  can  be  nothing  whatever  but  4-A.     In 
other  words,  no  matter  what   is  originally  posited,  the 
double  negation  of  it  as  negation  of  negation  simply  re- 
produce;s  the  original  position  totally  unchanged,  and  is 
incapable  of  producing  anything  whatever  that  is  new  or 
in  any  way  different  from  that  original  position.     This 
is  the  general  but  irrefutable   refutation  of  the  cardinal 
principle  of  Dialectic,  that  is,  the  principle  of  ''absolute 
negativity,"  or  pure  productivity  of  contradiction  as  ap- 
plied in  the  constitutive  triad  of  the  Dialectical  Method. 
The  refutation  is  nothing  but  sober  and  rigorous  insistence 
on  that  principle  of  Identity  which  is  everywhere  asserted 
and  employed  by  Dialectic  itself:  namely,  "A  is  A."     For 
negation  of  negation  of  the  first  moment  in  any  triad,  if 
made  in  rational  accordance  with  this  principle  of  Iden- 
tity,   reproduces  that  first   moment  precisely   as   it   was, 
before  it  was  aufgehoben  in  the  "  negative  unity  "  or  con- 
cretion of  the  first  two  moments  in  the  third,  and  is  abso- 
lutely incapable  of  producing  what  is  in  any  respect  or  in 
any  degree  a  "new  position."     Whatever  new  position  is 
now  discovered  in  the  third    moment  as   an  ostensible 
"advance"  upon  the  first,  or  as  a  pretended  "result"  of 
the  double  negation,  must  very  evidently  be  slipped  in 
from  some  other  source  than  the  barren  process  of  merely 
repeated  contradiction.     This   other  source,  whether  ac- 
knowledged or  unacknowledged,  justifiable  or  unjustifiable, 
stands  outside  of  pure  Dialectic  as  quite  another  principle : 
what  is   absolutely   certain  is  that  —  (-—A)  =  4-A,    and 
nothing  else,  and  that  contradiction  twice  made  gets  back 
to  the  old  position,  but  makes  no  new  one.     In  claiming, 
therefore,  to  be  a  productive   method,  pure   Dialectic  is 
pure  Sophistic. 

How  is  it,  then,  with  HegePs  first  and  fundamental 
triad  of  Being,  Nothing,  Becoming  ?  If  Dialectic  were 
Logic  and  not  Sophistic,  the  triad  would  be  a  duad  — a 
mere  pendulum-swing  from  Being  to  Nothing  and  from 
Nothing  to  Being  in  saecula  saeculorum.     Becoming  has  no 


'  !| 


!;• 


186 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


dialectical  place  whatever  in  the  triad,  and  must  originate 
from  the  outside. 

For  Pure  Being  is  first  posited  —  how,  by  what,  or  with 
what  warrant,  we  will  not  here  pause  to  inquire  —  as  Pure 
Abstraction  (die  reine  Ahstrahtion,  das  ganz  Ahstrakte^  das 
aI)solut-negative),  The  original  absolute  position  is  thus 
in  itself  the  first  absolute  negation :  Being  is  No-Being  or 
Nothing.  This  aboriginal  Being  as  Nothing  is  then  ne- 
gated again  as  No  No-Being  or  No  Nothing.  But  this 
double  negation,  being  thus  derived^  has  no  possible  positive 
content  other  than  that  of  the  first  position  from  which  it 
starts;  it  cannot,  therefore,  be  an  affirmation  of  Something, 
which  was  not  contained  in  but  explicitly  excluded  from 
that  first  position;  it  must  be  here  only  a  return  to  the 
original  Pure  Being  as  Pure  Abstraction,  tliat  is,  to  Being 
as  No-Being  or  Nothing.  Here  there  is  no  "advance" 
whatever,  but  only  retreat  to  the  beginning.  This  eternal 
swing  from  Being  to  Nothing  and  from  Nothing  back  to 
Being,  this  duad  and  no  triad,  is  the  only  logical  result  of 
HegePs  premises,  unless  his  Dialectic  is  prepared  to  deny 
the  very  principle  of  Identity  which  it  so  freely  uses,  and 
to  repudiate  the  "A  is  A."  The  third  term  Becoming  is 
logically  underivable  from  the  principle  of  ''absolute 
negativity,"  from  which  reason,  however  pure  and  how- 
ever keen  of  sight,  can  extract  no  more  than  the  duad. 
This  perfectly  empty  tautology,  however,  ending  precisely 
where  it  began  and  producing  no  result  which  can  consti- 
tute in  itself  a  new  position  for  further  advance,  is  the 
only  logical  outcome,  the  whole  rational  content,  of  the 
process  of  double  negation.  If  "A  is  A,"  the  pretence 
that  contradiction  is  or  can  be  productive,  and  that  double 
negation  actually  produces  a  new  position,  goes  to  the 
ground.  But  with  it  goes  Dialectic,  as  a  method  of  pure 
reason  which  aspires  to  supplant  the  method  of  Syllogistic, 
that  is,  identity  in  difference  of  reason  and  experience. 

§  223.  For,  be  it  remembered,  it  is  the  cardinal  prin- 
ciple of   Dialectic  that  pure  contradiction  produces  new 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AS  DIALECTIC 


187 


position,  when  it  takes  the  form  of  double  negation  and 
becomes  affirmative  in  a  positive  result  which  is  at  once, 
not  only  (1)  the  third  moment  of  one  triad,  but  also  (2) 
the  first  moment  of  another  triad,  inasmuch  as  this  result 
is  not  a  simple  return  to  the  first  position,  but  rather  the 
evolution  of  a  new  position  as  a  real "  advance  "  (Fortschritt) 
upon  the  first.  If  this  last  claim  is  unwarranted,  the  prin- 
ciple of  "  absolute  negativity  "  breaks  down.  But  the  dis- 
proof of  it  is  conclusive.  When  two  contradictories  are 
both  negated  and  concreted  (aiifgehoben)  in  a  third  moment 
as  their  "negative  unity,"  this  third  moment  necessarily 
reproduces  the  first  position  absolutely  without  change; 
it  does  not  produce  a  new  position  at  all,  and,  if  it  is  made 
to  appear  or  become  one,  the  appearance  is  effected  through 
some  principle  other  than  that  of  double  negation.  For 
—  (—A)  =  A,  in  general,  and  —  (—Being)  =  Being,  in 
particular;  —  (—A)  is  not  =  B,  and  —  (—Being)  is  not  = 
Becoming,  Hegel  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.  It  is 
precisely  his  uniform  but  nowhere  justified  assumption  at 
this  pivotal  point  which  constitutes  the  fatal  irrationality 
of  his  Dialectic  Method,  and  acquiescence  in  it  is  the 
amiable  credulity  of  his  disciples. 

For  his  "  Being  "  =  "  pure  abstraction,^'  pure  emptiness 
of  all  content,  absence  of  all  determinations,  or  0;  his 
"Nothing"  =  "pure  abstraction,"  absence  of  all  determi- 
nations, or  0;  and  the  only  possible  unity  or  concretion  of 
the  two  is  0  +  0.  But  0  -f  0  =  0,  which  is  simple  return 
to  his  first  position,  namely.  Being  ivithout  determinations^ 
and  not  at  all  advance  to  Becoming,  namely,  Being  with 
determinations.  For  Hegel  himself  explicates  Becoming  as 
full  of  determinations:  namely,  as  "the  first  concrete 
tliowght  {Gedanke)  and  thereby  the  first  Notion"  (Begriff); 
as  "  the  first  concrete  and  thus  the  first  true  thought-deter- 
mination "  (Gedankenbestimmu7ig) ;  as  *'  a  Being,  but  a  Being 
with  negation  or  determinateness "  {Bestimmtheit)\  as 
"  unrest,  the  absolutely  restless,  the  abstract  restlessness  " 
(Unruhe,  das  durchaus  Eastlose,  diese  abstrakte  Ra^tlosig- 


U' 


188 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


I 


' 


if 


Iff 


keit)y  as  "a  something  that  vanishes"  (ein  Verschwin^ 
derides):,  as  "a  fire,  so  to  speak,  that  extinguishes  itself 
in  consuming  its  material ;  "  as  motion  in  Uebergehen,  as 
change  in  Umschlagen,  etc.  Now,  is  one  to  believe  that  all 
these  various  real  determinations  can  be  begotten  by  mere 
double  negation  out  of  empty  zero  ?  Yet  this  absurdity 
must  be  swallowed  by  any  one  who  admits  that  double 
negation  can  in  any  rational  way  explain  or  derive  Becom- 
ing, definitely  determined  as  Filled  Being,  from  Pure  Being 
and  Nothing,  two  elements  of  which  each  is  defined  as 
"pure  abstraction"  or  Absolute _  Emptiness,  Syllogistic 
writes  the  "negative  unity  "  of  the  two  as  0  +  0  =  0,  while 
Dialectic  writes  it  as  0  +  0  =  1.  Which  equation  or  con- 
cretion is  rational,  and  which  sophistical  or  irrational  ? 

The  clear  result  of  this  investigation  so  far  is  that  a 
bottomless  chasm,  not  to  be  bridged  by  the  dialectic  proc- 
ess, yawns  between  "Pure  Being,"  the  primal  position 
with  which  the  first  triad  begins  and  to  which  double 
negation  necessarily  brings  it  back  unaugmented  by  any 
fresh  content,  and  "Becoming,"  the  vastly  augmented  new 
position  with  which  the  second  triad  begins.  The  "  pure 
reason  "  which  despises  and  excludes  "  experience  "  cannot 
connect  the  two,  because  without  experience  it  has  no 
principle  of  linkage  between  two  successive  positions  of 
which  one  is  Nothing  and  the  other  Everything.  The 
whole  series  of  triads  becomes  an  incoherent  succession  of 
ungrounded  and  unconnected  positions,  in  every  philo- 
sophical regard  a  mere  rope  of  sand,  when  once  the  prin- 
ciple of  double  negation  as  the  productivity  of  contradiction 
breaks  down,  turns  out  to  be  a  mere  grandiose  assertion 
against  reason,  and  is  stripped  of  its  deceptive  mask  of 
rationality.  For  by  Hegel's  own  elucidations,  "Pure 
Being"  is  Empty  Being,  and  "Becoming"  is  Filled  Being; 
he  everywhere  assumes  that  his  "  absolute  negativity  "  or 
persistent  contradiction  produces  the  Absolute  Fulness  out 
of  the  Absolute  Emptiness  —  creates  Everything  out  of 
Nothing ;  and  that  amazing  assumption  is  the  only  f ounda- 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AS  DIALECTIC 


189 


tion  and  only  real  content  of  Dialectic.  More  technically 
stated,  the  assumption  is  that  the  combination  or  concretion 
of  two  contradictories  generates  a  new  "  position  "  which 
is  a  tenable  mean  between  them  and  the  "  truth  "  of  both 
together.  This  is  implicit  denial  of  the  law  of  excluded 
middle,  abolition  of  logic,  quintessence  of  irrationality ;  it 
exhibits  reine  Vemunft  as  felo  de  se.  All  real  rationality 
lies  in  the  syllogistic  must,  and  absolutely  vanishes  if  the 
syllogism  does  not  demonstrate ;  and  the  syllogism  certainly 
does  not  demonstrate,  unless  its  "either  —  or"  stands  as 
final  and  conclusive  —  that  is,  unless  the  law  of  excluded 
middle  holds  good.  Yet  this  law  of  excluded  middle  is 
precisely  what  Hegel  repudiates,  as  valid  only  for  the 
"reflective  understanding"  —  not  valid  or  binding  at  all 
for  the  "speculative  reason,"  which  recognizes  no  logic 
but  Dialectic.^ 

Here  at  last  we  get  at  the  real  secret  of  "  absolute  ideal- 
ism "  —  of  Dialectic  as  superior  to  Syllogistic,  and  of  the 
dialectical  triad  ay  its  substitute  for  the  syllogism.  The 
Hegelian  logic  assumes,  in  tacit  defiance  of  the  Aristotelian, 
that  self-contradiction  is  the  very  essence,  or  essential  self- 
determining  activity,  of  thought  as  thought  (Bewusstsein 
des  Gegensatzes  des  Denkens  in  und  gegen  sich)\  that  the 
conclusion  of  the  syllogism  is  no  more  true  in  itself  than 
its  absolute  contradictory ;  that  both  are  relatively  true  or 
relatively  false;  that  both  have  their  real  truth  only  in 
being  concreted  (aufgehoben)  in  their  "negative  unity;" 
that  this  "negative  unity,"  as  a  positive  "result,"  now 
stands  as  a  "new  position,"  to  be  again  negated,  again 
concreted,  and  thereby  advanced  to  yet  another  "new 
position ; "  that  the  only  absolute  truth  at  last  is  this 
absolute  motion  of  the  Idea  as  the  One  Totality,  eternally 
contradicting  itself,  eternally  solving  its  own  contradic- 
tions by  means  of  its  own  concretions,  and  eternally  con- 
tradicting again  its  own  solutions ;  and  that,  in  each  triad 

1  Encyklopadie,  Logik,  Werke,  VI.  238-243. 


';r 


■/r 


190 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


of  this  self -mediating  process,  the  "new  position/'  that  is, 
the  middle  term  which  is  not  excluded  by  any  contradiction, 
but  which  lies  already  involved  in  it  as  its  self-reconcilia- 
tion, and  which  can  nowise  be  inferred  by  the  merely 
abstractive  or  reflective  understanding,  must  be  discovered, 
discerned,  or  seen  by  the  higher  speculative  reason.  In 
this  doctrine  of  the  speculative  reason,  then,  we  have  the 
real  "  Secret  of  Hegel,"  the  key  to  Dialectic  as  the  peculiar 
and  higher  method  of  his  "Speculative  Philosophy;"  for, 
while  the  form  of  procedure  is  the  dialectical  method  in 
general  and  the  dialectical  triad  in  particular,  the  soul  of 
the  process  is  that  which  proceeds,  and  this  is  the  Spirit 
which  immediately,  that  is,  without  mediation,  "  sees  "  the 
"  new  positions  "  of  the  successive  triads  —  the  Spirit  itself 
as  Eiyiseheny  Einsicht,  or  Spekidation,  This  must  be  scru- 
tinized very  closely  and  at  length. 

§  224.  There  are  three  attitudes,  according  to  Hegel,  by 
which  the  mind  may  relate  itself  to  reality,  three  attitudes 
of  thought  towards  the  objective  world. 

The  first  of  these  attitudes  is  Dogmatism,  the  naive 
procedure  which  rests  on  the  belief  that  truth  is  known 
through  reflection  and  that  what  things  really  are  can  be 
presented  to  consciousness ;  it  goes  on  the  assumption  that, 
of  two  contradictory  contentions,  one  must  be  true  and  the 
other  false,  as  something  which  is  final  or  fixed,  that  is, 
not  to  be  again  denied. 

"  The  old  Skeptics  called  every  philosophy  dogmatic  in  so  far 
as  it  had  anything  definite  to  teach.  In  this  broad  sense,  even  the 
speculative  philosophy,  from  the  skeptical  point  of  view,  must  pass 
for  dogmatic.  In  the  narrower  sense,  the  Dogmatic  consists  in 
adhering  to  one-sided  determinations  of  the  mere  understanding  to 
the  exclusion  of  their  contradictories.  It  is  in  general  the  strict 
*  either  —  or ' ;  for  instance,  the  world  is  either  finite  or  infinite,  but 
only  one  of  the  two.  On  the  other  hand,  the  True,  the  Speculative, 
is  precisely  that  which  has  in  itself  no  such  one-sided  determina- 
tion and  is  not  exhausted  by  it,  but,  as  Totality,  holds  united  in 
itself  those  determinations  which  to  dogmatism  are  valid  in  their 


I 


i 


1 1  ■  I 
1^' 


PHILOSOPHICAL   METHOD   AS  DIALECTIC 


191 


separation  as  something  fixed  and  true.  .  .  .  The  battle  of  reason 
consists  in  overturning  that  which  the  understanding  has  fixed."  ^ 

In  other  words,  by  concreting  (aufheheri)  two  contradic- 
tories in  their  negative  unity  as  a  new  positive  result,  the 
reason  overturns  the  contradiction  fixed  as  conclusive  or 
final  by  the  understanding  —  and  with  it  overturns  the  law 
of  excluded  middle.  But,  in  defining  this  first  attitude 
of  thought,  Hegel  falls  into  a  caricature  of  the  under- 
standing which  is  so  gross  as  to  become  grotesque :  "  The 
reflective  thinking  of  the  mere  understanding  is  limited 
to  the  form  of  the  abstract  universal,  and  is  powerless 
to  advance  to  the  particularization  of  this  universal."* 
Since  the  characteristic  act  of  the  understanding  is  the 
syllogism,  by  which  the  genus  particularizes  itself  in  the 
specimen  through  the  species,  —  and  since,  as  we  have 
shown  at  great  length  in  a  previous  chapter.  Syllogistic  is 
thus  the  principle  of  individuation  through  genesis,  that 
is,  the  principle  of  all  particularization  of  the  universal, 
whether  as  abstract  in  Thought  or  concrete  in  Being,  — 
HegePs  misjudgment  here  is  glaring.  His  criticism  of  the 
understanding  as  dealing  only  with  the  "abstract  uni- 
versal" recoils  witheringly  upon  his  own  theory  of  the 
reason  as  active  only  in  the  Begriff,  of  which  the  three 
constitutive  moments  are  "universality,  particularity,  and 
individuality"*  —  three  abstractions,  and  nothing  but  ab- 
stractions, drawn  from  the  real  unlversals,  particulars,  and 
individuals  which  Dialectic,  as  "pure  reason,"  excludes 
and  ignores  as  given  only  in  experience,  but  which  Syllo- 
gistic includes  and  recognizes  as  the  necessary  condition 
and  source  of  these  very  abstractions.  When  the  specula- 
tive reason  thus  blames  the  reflective  understanding  for 

*  Werke,  VI.  67-69 :  "  .  .  .  Der  Kanipf  der  Vemunft  besteht  darin, 
dasjenige,  was  der  Veretand  fixirt  hat,  zu  iiberwinden." 

■  **Das  bios  verstandige  Denken  ist  auf  die  Form  des  abstrakt  Allge- 
meinen  beschrankt  und  vermag  nicht  zur  Besonderang  dieses  Allgemeinen 
fortzuschreiten."    (Werke,  VI.  78.) 

8  Werke,  VI.  320. 


I 


' 


111. 


iir 


192 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


dealing  with  the  "abstract  universal,"  when  Dialectic  deals 
with  nothing  else,  it  acts  out  the  parable  of  the  wolf  and 
the  lamb  with  a  vengeance,  and  HegePs  characterization 
of  the  understanding  becomes  pure  caricature. 

§  225.  The  second  of  Hegel's  "  three  attitudes  "  is  Em- 
pirism  or  Empiricism.  This  exalts  the  content  of  the 
single  perception,  feeling,  or  intuition,  into  the  form  of 
universal  representations,  propositions,  laws,  and  so  forth, 
as  ultimates  of  thought  whose  interconnection  in  the  phae- 
nomenon  needs  no  further  investigation  or  justification. 
It  contains  the  great  principle  that  what  is  true  must  be 
in  reality  and  exist  for  perception. 

"  This  principle  is  opposed  to  the  Ought,  with  which  reflection 
puffs  itself  up  and  in  the  presence  of  Reality  scornfully  busies 
itself  with  a  Beyond  [that  is,  an  Ideal],  which  can  have  its  seat 
and  existence  solely  in  the  subjective  understanding.  Like  Em- 
piricism, philosophy,  too,  knows  only  that  which  is ;  it  knows  no 
such  thing  as  that  which  merely  ought  to  be,  and  which,  therefore, 
does  not  exist.^  On  the  subjective  side,  likewise,  Empirism  con- 
tains the  important  principle  of  Freedom,  namely,  th.^t  whatever 
the  human  being  should  allow  as  valid  in  his  own  knowledge  he 
should  himself  ^Q  —  should  know  himself  2A  present  in  it** 

Further  consideration  of  the  second  attitude  is  unnecessary 
in  this  connection.  But  it  should  be  noted  in  passing  that 
the  two  "  principles  "  here  approved  by  speculative  philos- 
ophy, namely,  "freedom"  and  "opposition  to  the  Ought," 
are  totally  incompatible :  without  freedom  there  could  be 
no  Ought,  and  without  the  Ought  there  could  be  no  free- 
dom. Both  equally  belong  to  ethics,  and  without  ethics 
neither  has  the  least  significance;  for  the  Good  is  the 
Ethically  True  —  the  True  is  the   Rationally  Good  —  all 

^  Compare  the  explicit  statement  elsewhere  :  **  Die  frei  sich  wissende 
Substam,  in  welcher  das  absolute  Sollen  eben  so  sehr  Seyn  ist,  hat  als 
Geist  eines  Volkes  Wirklichkeit."  (Philosophic  des  Geistes,  Werke,  VII. 
ii.  391.)  That  is,  the  Ought  does  after  all  "  exist  "  in  the  objective  under- 
standing as  the  "  spirit  of  a  people  "  —  though  Hegel  does  not  teach  that 
it  exists  also  as  the  Divine  Ideal  of  the  Infinite  Spirit. 


a 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AS  DIALECTIC 


193 


freedom  of  thought  is  necessarily  ethical,  since  perfect 
truth,  which  is  or  should  be  the  aim  of  all  thought,  is 
the  intellectual  ideal,  that  is,  the  Ought  in  all  intellectual 
activity.  If  speculative  philosophy  knows  no  Ought,  no 
Ideal  of  Truth,  no  Beyond  as  Purpose  to  be  realized  or 
effected,  it  has  no  possible  meaning  or  worth  for  man;  and 
the  "motion"  or  "free  self-determination"  of  the  Idea 
itself,  if  devoid  of  the  Ought  as  its  not  yet  realized  Aim, 
sinks  to  the  level  of  merely  mechanical  motion  as  blind, 
as  meaningless,  and  as  unethical  as  the  blowing  of  the 
wind. 

§  226.  The  third  attitude  is  Speculative  Philosophy 
itself,  or  the  Logic  of  Absolute  Idealism  —  not  the  merely 
subjective,  abstract,  and  formal  logic  of  the  Critical  Phi- 
losophy, but  the  objective  logic  of  which  the  fundamental 
principle  is  the  pure  productivity  of  contradiction  as  double 
negation,  the  "  absolute  negativity  "  of  the  Idea. 

"  In  respect  to  its  form,  the  Logical  has  three  sides :  (1)  the  ab- 
stract or  merely  intellectual;  (2)  the  dialectical  or  negatively- 
rational;  (3)  the  speculative  or  positively-rational.  These  three 
sides  do  not  constitute  three  parts  of  logic,  but  are  moments  of  every 
Logically-Real,  that  is,  of  every  concept  or  every  truth  in  general. 
They  can  be  posited  all  together  under  the  first  moment  {das 
Verstdndige),  and  thereby  held  in  isolation  from  each  other ;  but  so 
they  are  not  considered  truly."  ^ 

The  activity  of  the  reflective  understanding  consists 
essentially  in  imparting  to  its  content  the  form  of  uni- 
versality, and  the  universal  posited  by  it  is  an  abstract 
universal,  that  is,  a  universal  abstracted  from  all  its 
particulars ;  but  by  holding  the  universal  in  this  manner 
over  against  its  particulars  the  understanding  converts  the 
universal  itself  into  a  particular.  Since  the  understanding 
thus  relates  itself  to  its  objects  as  simply  analytic,  by  the 
way  of  separation  and  abstraction,  it  is  the  precise  oppo- 
site of  immediate  intuition  and  sensation,  that  is,  the 


1  Werke,  VI.  146,  147. 


VOL.  II.  — 13 


194 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


sensibility  as  such^  which  deals  only  with  the  unanalyzed 
whole  of  the  sensuously-concrete.  Thus  the  essential 
principle  of  the  understanding  is  that  of  abstract  identity 
[A  is  A,  A  is  not  Not-A],  inasmuch  as  it  abstracts  and 
isolates  the  results  of  its  analysis  as  something  ultimate 
or  final  in  themselves,  always  the  same  in  their  absolute 
differences.  Since  all  progress  in  knowledge  from  one 
determination  to  another  must  be  effected  through  this 
principle  of  identity,  the  full  right  and  desert  of  the 
understanding  must  be  conceded  in  philosophy;  its  ab- 
stractions are  indispensable  in  mathematics,  jurisprudence, 
and  so  forth,  no  less  than  in  common  life.  But  these 
abstractions  of  the  understanding  are  not,  as  it  supposes, 
ultimate  or  fixed;  they  strike  over  into  their  opposites, 
and  must  be  handled  by  a  higher  faculty  which  is  capable 
of  treating  them  dialectically. 

The  dialectical  movement  is  properly  the  self-cancella- 
tion (Sich'Aiifheben)  of  such  finite  determinations,  and 
their  crossing  over  into  their  opposites.  The  Dialectical, 
taken  separately  for  itself  by  the  understanding  and  ex- 
hibited particularly  in  scientific  conceptions,  constitutes 
Scepticism,  which  retains  mere  negation  as  the  final  result 
of  the  Dialectical.  But  genuine  Dialetic  is  the  real  and 
true  nature  of  the  understanding's  abstractions,  nay,  of 
things  themselves  and  the  finite  in  general.  Reflection  is 
in  itself  an  external  transcendence  of  them  in  their  iso- 
lated determinateness  and  disconnectedness,  and  a  bringing 
of  them  into  definite  relations,  although  it  still  maintains 
their  isolated  validity.  But  Dialectic  is  an  immanent 
transcendence  by  which  the  onesidedness  and  limitedness 
of  the  understanding's  abstractions  is  exhibited  as  that 
which  it  really  is,  namely,  their  negation.  "Everything 
finite  is  this  —  to  abolish  itself  "  {Alles  Endliche  ist  diess, 
sick  selbst  aufzuheben).  The  Dialectical,  therefore,  consti- 
tutes the  moving  soul  of  the  scientific  process,  and  is  the 
principle  by  which  alone  all  immanent  connection  and  neces- 
sity come  into  the  content  of  science,  in  which  there  lies, 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AS  DIALECTIC 


195 


i\ 


1/ 


in  general,  the  true  and  internal  exaltation  above  the  finite. 
It  is  the  principle  of  all  motion,  all  life,  all  effectuation  in 
reality,  and  the  soul  of  all  truly  scientific  knowing.  The 
finite  is  not  merely  limited  from  without,  but  nullifies 
itself  from  within  through  its  own  nature,  and  of  itself 
goes  over  into  its  contradictory.  Dialectic,  moreover,  is 
not  to  be  confounded  with  Sophistic,  the  essence  of  which 
consists  in  setting  up  onesided  and  abstract  determinations 
as  valid  in  their  isolation,  according  to  the  existing  inter- 
est or  situation  of  the  individual.^  From  all  such  proced- 
ure Dialectic  is  essentially  different,  for  it  goes  straight 
to  the  consideration  of  things  in  and  for  themselves,  and 
thereby  exposes  the  finiteness  of  the  understanding's  one- 
sided abstractions.  Philosophy  contains  the  Sceptical  as  a 
moment  in  itself,  that  is,  as  the  Dialectical;  but  it  does 
not  stop  with  the  merely  negative  result  of  Dialectic,  as 
is  the  case  with  Scepticism.  Since  Dialectic  has  for  its 
result  the  negative,  this  negative,  just  by  being  a  result, 
is  at  the  same  time  a  positive;  for  it  contains  that  from 
which  it  results  as  absorbed  in  itself,  and  does  not  exist 
without  it.  But  this  is  the  fundamental  characteristic  of 
the  third  form  of  the  Logical,  namely,  the  speculative  or 
positively  -rational. 

The  Speculative  or  Positively-Rational  seizes  the  unitT/ 
of  determinations  in  their  opposition,  that  is,  the  Affirma- 
tion which  is  contained  in  their  melting  away  and  going 
over  into  their  opposites  or  contradictories.*     (1)  Dialectic 

1  "Methinks  the  lady  doth  protest  too  much."  In  this  case  the  pro- 
test  itself  is  sophistical  in  setting  up  a  misleading  definition  of  Sophistic. 
Sophistic  is  the  art  of  making  the  worse  appear  the  better  reason  —  of 
violating  undetected  the  laws  of  Syllogistic.  Any  definition  of  Sophistic 
which  determines  its  essence  by  referring  it  to  any  norm  but  Syllogistic  is 
itself  sophistical  Aristotle  finds  its  essence  in  an  "apparent  wisdom" 
which  aims  at  "apparent  demonstration  "  —  ii  yap  <To<pLCTi.K-n  iffriv^  usirep 
tlxofUEV,  xPVfMTiffTiKii  Tts  dird  <To<l>las  <paivotUvt}%,  8ib  <paLvofi^if7)s  dirodel^ews 
i<f>Uirrai  —  and  the  norm  of  demonstration  is  the  syllogism. 

«  •*  Being"  is  posited  as  "  pure,  abstract,  or  empty  Being ;"  its  logical 
contradictory  is  "No  Being,"  while  its  real  opposite,  that  is,  the  contrary 


196 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


has  a  positive  result  because  it  has  a  determined  content, 
or  because  its  result  is  not  really  the  empty,  abstract  Noth- 
ing, but  the  negation  of  certain  determinations y  which  are 
contained  in  the  result  for  the  very  reason  that  this  is  not 
an  imviedlate  Nothiny,  >ut  a  result.  (2)  This  rational 
result,  although  it  is  one  that  is  thought  and  even  abstract, 
is  at  the  same  time  one  that  is  concrete^  because  it  is  not 
simple  formal  unity,  but  the  unity  of  different  determina- 
tions.  With  mere  abstractions  or  formal  thoughts  philos- 
ophy has  nothing  to  doj  it  deals  with  concrete  thoughts 
alone.  (3)  The  logic  of  the  mere  understanding  is  con- 
tained in  the  speculative  logic,  and  can  be  directly  derived 
from  this;  nothing  is  necessary  for  such  derivation  but  to 
leave  out  the  si)eculative  elements,  that  is,  the  Dialectical 
and  the  Rational ;  then  it  becomes  what  the  common  logic 
is,  a  "  history  of  variously  compounded  thought-determina- 
tions which  in  their  finitude  get  credit  as  something 
infinite."  The  Speculative  in  general  is  nothing  but  the 
rational,  indeed  the  positively-rational,  so  far  as  this  is 
thought.  It  is  not  the  merely  subjective,  but  rather  that 
which  contains  in  itself,  as  aufgehobenf  all  those  opposi- 

which  contains  a  real  position  is  "empirical,  concrete,  or  filled  Being." 
Manifestly,  the  "Nothing"  which  stands  in  the  triad  as  the  "  negation  " 
of  "Being"  must  be  the  logical  contradictory,  not  the  real  opposite. 
Hence  Dialectical  Negation  must  be  logical  contradiction,  not  real  opposi- 
tion ;  Not-A  must  deny  whatever  A  posits  in  its  entirety,  and  not  merely 
a  part  of  it.  Hegel  himself  defines  the  relation  of  "opposed  determina- 
tions," not  as  real opiiosition,  but  as  logical  "contradiction,"  when  he  says 
(Werke,  VL  178) :  "  Es  ist  iiberall  gar  nichtSy  worin  nicht  der  Wider- 
spruch,  d.  i.  entgegengesetzte  Bestimmungen  aufgezeigt  werden  konnen 
und  miissen."  Still  more  distinctly :  "  WoUte  man  es  fiir  richtiger  halten, 
dass  statt  des  Nichts  dem  Seyn  das  Nichtseyn  entgegengesetzt  wiirde, 
so  ware  in  Riieksicht  auf  das  Resultat  nichts  dawider  zu  haben,  denn  im 
Nichtseyn  ist  die  Beziehung  auf  das  Seyn  enthalten  ;  es  ist  Beides,  Seyn 
und  die  Negation  desselben,  in  Einem  ausgesprochen,  das  Nichts,  wie  es 
ira  Werden  ist."  (Werke,  IH.  79.)  The  only  conceivable  ground  of 
Hegel's  repeated  and  energetic  protests  against  the  "  Either  —  Or  "  is  his 
own  consciousness  that  his  antitheses  are  logical  contradictions,  and  not 
mere  real  oppositions. 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AS  DIALECTIC 


197 


tions  (including  that  of  the  subjective  and  the  objective) 
to  which  the  understanding  holds  fast;  and  it  thereby 
shows  itself  as  concrete  and  as  totality.  Hence  a  specu- 
lative content  cannot  be  expressed  in  a  onesided  propo- 
sition. If  we  say,  for  instance,  that  the  Absolute  is  the 
unity  of  the  subjective  and  the  objective,  this  is  correct, 
to  be  sure,  yet  onesided  so  far  as  here  the  unity  alone  is 
expressed  and  the  emphasis  laid  on  it,  while  in  fact  the 
subjective  and  the  objective  are  not  only  identical,  but  also 
different.  Further,  the  Speculative  is  the  same  as  the 
Mystical,  not  in  the  sense  of  inconceivability,  superstition, 
or  illusion,  but  in  the  sense  of  that  which  is  mysterious  for 
the  understanding  alone;  for  the  principle  of  the  under- 
standing is  abstract  identity,  while  the  Mystical,  as  synon- 
ymous with  the  Speculative,  is  the  concrete  union  of  those 
determinations  which  for  the  understanding  hold  good  only 
in  their  separation  and  opposition.  The  abstract  thinking 
of  the  understanding  is  so  little  fixed  or  final  that  it  shows 
itself  rather  as  the  constant  nullification  of  itself  and  as 
its  going  over  into  its  contradictory,  whereas  the  rational 
as  such  consists  in  holding  both  the  contradictories  as 
ideal  moments  in  itself.  Everything  rational,  therefore, 
is  to  be  described  as  at  the  same  time  mystical ;  which  is 
only  saying  that  it  transcends  the  understanding,  not  at  all 
that  it  is  to  be  considered  as  inconceivable  or  inaccessible 
to  thought. 

§  227.  The  transcendent  importance  of  method  in  phi- 
losophy, as  the  source  of  all  its  results,  justifies  the  space 
we  are  giving  to  Hegel's  exposition  of  Dialectic,  brought 
by  him  to  its  fullest  and  highest  development  as  the 
"Speculative  Method."  It  professes,  not  to  invalidate 
Syllogistic,  but  to  absorb  and  transcend  it,  as  avfgehohen 
in  itself.  It  professes  to  justify  the  logic  of  the  reflective 
understanding  as  an  inferior  faculty,  and  to  retain  it  still 
in  the  logic  of  the  speculative  reason,  whence  it  can  be 
again  recovered  unimpaired  by  simply  dropping  the  specu- 
lative-rational element  of  "absolute  negativity."    But  the 


198 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  THILOSOPIIY 


truth  of  the  matter  comes  out  in  the  frank  declaration  that 
"  the  battle  of  reason  consists  in  overturning  [uberwinden] 
that  which  the  understanding  has  fixed "  [Jlxirt],  Cer- 
tainly, if  the  understanding  has  fixed  anything  as  logically 
immovable,  it  is  the  three  fundamental  laws  of  identity, 
contradiction,  and  excluded  middle,  on  which  Syllogistic 
rests,  and  it  is  precisely  the  "Either  —  Or,"  the  law  of  ex- 
cluded middle,  against  which  Dialectic  wages  its  most 
relentless  war.  At  this  central  strategic  point  the  whole 
battle  must  be  won  or  lost. 

All  the  issues  involved  between  Dialectic  and  Syllogistic 
are  brought  to  a  luminous  focus  in  these  words  of  Hegel : 

**  Since  Dialectic  has  for  its  result  the  negative,  this  negative, 
just  by  being  a  result,  is  at  the  same  time  a  positive  ;  for  it  contains 
that  from  which  it  results  as  absorbed  or  concreted  in  itself,  and 
does  not  exist  without  it.  But  this  is  the  fundamental  character- 
istic of  the  third  form  of  the  logical,  namely,  the  Speculative  or 
Positively-Rational."  ^ 

It  is  a  mere  truism  that  "two  negatives  make  an  afllrma- 
tive,"  but  the  allirmative  thus  made  is  always  the  original 
positive  that  is  negated,  nothing  less  and  nothing  more. 
This  is  the  conclusion  of  Syllogistic,  with  its  —(—A)  =  -|-A. 
But  it  clashes  irreconcilably  with  the  conclusion  of  Dia- 
lectic, that  —(—A)  =  B,  or,  more  exactly,  —(—A)  =  A  + 
B.  For  Dialectic  is  the  principle  that  double  negation 
does  not  simply  reproduce  the  original  positive,  but  pro- 
duces a  new  positive  which  is  an  advance  upon  the  old, 
containing  all  that  this  contains,  but  at  the  same  time 
evolving  out  of  the  union  of  this  positive  and  its  first 
negative,  by  the  pure  force  of  the  second  negative  and  the 
creative  negativity  itself,  a  new  content  that  was  not  in 
either  factor  alone.  Hence,  if  A  was  the  original  positive, 
the  "  result "  of  the  double  negation  is  not,  as  Syllogistic 
teaches,  A  alone,  but  rather  A  +  B.  Hegel  evidently 
considers  it  enough,  in  order  to  establish  the  pure  produc- 

1  Encyklopadie,  Logik,  Werke,  VI.  157. 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AS  DIALECTIC 


199 


1 


tivity  of  his  double  negation,  to  maintain  that "  this  result, 
just  by  being  a  result,  is  at  the  same  time  a  positive." 
This  does  not  in  the  least  need  to  be  proved;  it  is  admitted 
by  the  common  truism  that  "two  negatives  make  an  affirm- 
ative," no  less  than  by  Syllogistic.  But  what  does  need, 
and  very  badly  need,  to  be  proved,  is  that  the  admittedly 
jmsitlve  result  is  A  -\-  B  and  not  A  alone.  It  is  the  justifi- 
cation of  that  unaccountable  B  which  is  demanded,  not  the 
merely  "  positive  "  character  of  the  "  result "  as  such ;  and 
it  is  this  justification  of  B,  some  rational  account  of  its 
origin  and  its  presence  where  it  has  no  right  to  exist,  for 
which  one  looks  to  Hegel  in  vain. 

For  instance,  in  his  fundamental  triad  of  Pure  Being, 
Nothing,  Becoming,  the  real  "  positive  result "  of  double 
negation,  according  to  Syllogistic,  is  A  alone,  that  is,  Pure 
Being  once  more,  absolutely  and  totally  unchanged  as 
Empty  Being;  and  yet  what  Dialectic  presents  as  its 
"positive  result"  is  Becoming,  Filled  Being,  Pure  Being 
jdus  innumerable  determinations,  that  is,  A  -\-  B,  Un- 
less that  addition  of  B  can  be  explained  by  Dialectic  as 
Hegel  has  nowhere  explained  it,  the  first  triad  shrivels 
into  a  duad;  Pure  Being  goes  over  to  Nothing,  and  Noth- 
ing goes  back  to  Pure  Being,  and  the  pendulum  swing  goes 
on  forever,  without  ever  arriving  at  Becoming  at  all.  In 
short,  the  Dialectical  Process,  if  true  to  itself  as  mere 
"absolute  negativity,"  presents  itself  as  the  profitless 
agility  of  the  squirrel  in  his  revolving  cage,  whirling  it  in 
endless  motion  as  he  leaps,  yet  never  advancing  its  posi- 
tion by  so  much  as  the  breadth  of  a  hair. 

§  228.  In  this  total  inability  of  Dialectic  to  effect  a 
rational  connection  between  the  first  position  to  which  it 
inevitably  returns  and  the  second  position  on  which  all 
its  further  progress  must  depend,  —  in  the  consequent 
necessity  of  employing  some  other  principle  than  that  of 
"  pure  thought "  as  "  absolute  negativity  "  in  order  to  pass 
from  Pure  Being,  or  Nothing,  to  Becoming,  or  Everything, 
—  and  in  its  silent  refusal  to  acknowledge  this  necessity  or 


200 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHH^OSOrHY 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AS  DIALECTIC 


201 


legitimize  this  other  principle,  —  lies  the  failure  of  Dia- 
lectic as  a  philosophical  method.  From  Being  to  Becom- 
ing, from  Nothing  to  Everything,  the  leap  is  enormous,  — 
it  is  indeed  Schelling's  Sprung,  The  enormity  of  it  is 
revealed  in  the  enormity  of  the  claim  made  to  hide  it, 
namely,  that  double  negation  as  such  is  productive  of  new 
position,  and  that  such  new  position  is  an  unexcluded  and 
tenable  middle  term  between  contradictories.  Of  two 
things  one  is  necessary :  if  Being  and  Nothing  are  logical 
contradictories,  they  cannot,  either  alone  or  in  combina- 
tion, produce  Becoming  as  a  middle  term  between  them; 
but,  if  they  are  contraries  or  real  opposites,  they  cannot 
be  pure  thought-abstractions,  and  can  be  known  so  far  only 
as  they  are  given  in  experience.  These  necessary  alterna- 
tives, either  of  which  is  fatal  to  Dialectic  as  a  method  of 
pure  thinking  independent  of  all  experience,  presented 
themselves  in  clearness  to  Trendelenburg  while  Hegers 
work  was  still  re«ent: 

"  There  results  for  the  Dialectic  of  Pure  Thought  an  unavoidable 
dilemma.  The  uegation  which  mediates  the  advance  of  the  second 
and  third  moments  of  the  triad  is  either  pure  logical  contradiction 
(A,  Not- A),  —  in  which  case,  however,  it  can  neither  produce  any- 
thing intrinsically  determinate  in  the  second  moment  nor  admit  a 
unification  in  the  third  moment;  or  else  it  is  real  opposition,  —  in 
which  case,  again,  it  is  not  to  be  attained  by  means  of  logic,  and 
Dialectic  is  no  Dialectic  of  Pure  Thought.  Whoever,  therefore, 
sees  deeply  into  the  so-called  negative  movement  of  Dialectic  will 
discover  something  ambiguous  in  most  cases  of  its  application."  * 

If  Being  and  Nothing,  then,  are  logical  contradictories, 
Becoming  is  absolutely  excluded  as  a  mean  between  them, 
unless  Dialectic  can  effectively  discredit  the  law  of  excluded 
middle,  and  prove  that  double  negation  generates  ex  propria 
vigore  a  middle  which  is  not  excluded ;  but  neither  of  these 
things  has  Dialectic  done.  On  the  other  hand,  if  Being 
and  Nothing  are  real  opposites,  that  is,  contraries  which 

*  A.  Trendelenburg,  liOgische  Untersucbungen,  I.  66. 


' 


contain  in  themselves  a  real  position,  a  position  which  is 
not  generated  by  the  mere  act  of  negation,  but  subsists 
previously  and  independently  in  and  of  itself,  then  Being 
and  Nothing  must  be  empirically  known  and  Becoming 
must  be  their  empirically  known  concretion.  From  this 
dilemma  there  can  be  no  escape  by  any  means  known  to 
the  understanding.  How  does  Hegel  escape  it  ?  By  seek- 
ing to  discredit  the  understanding  and  its  law  of  excluded 
middle.  He  seeks  to  flank  the  difficulty,  to  rise  above  the 
understanding's  dilemma  itself,  and  to  accomplish  this 
purpose  by  heroically  postulating  a  new  principle  as  "  the 
Positively-Rational "  which  is  identical  with  "  the  Specu- 
lative "  and  "the  Mystical,"  a  principle  altogether  superior 
to  the  syllogistic  intellect,  a  principle  which  "  transcends 
the  understanding,"  yet  is  "not  inconceivable  or  inacces- 
sible to  thought,"  when  "the  positively -rational,"  that  is, 
the  reason  which  posits  as  well  as  negates,  is  itself  con- 
ceived or  "thought"  as  Spekulation.^     What  is  this? 

§  229.  For  Hegel,  the  fundamental  standpoint  of  absolute 
idealism  that  Thought  is  the  o)dy  Substance^  or  that  noth- 
ing exists  but  ideas  as  appearing  and  disappearing  forms 
of  The  Idea,  determined  everything  in  philosophy.  Since 
the  syllogism,  (1)  in  Being  and  (2)  in  Thought,  is  the 
identity  in  difference  of  genus,  species,  and  specimen,  or 
universals,  particulars,  and  individuals,  and  since  this,  as 
a  method  of  Knowing,  is  the  identity  in  difference  of  rea- 
son and  experience,  it  could  not  possibly  be  the  method  of 
philosophizing  as  reines  Denken,  the  thinking  which  sepa- 
rates reason  and  experience  and  eliminates  the  latter  in 
order  to  make  reason  "pure."  But  it  was  not  enough  to 
eliminate  experience  in  general  as  mere  "intuition,"  "per- 

*  "Alias  Verniinftige  ist  somit  sogleicli  als  mystisch  zu  bezeichnen, 
womit  jedoch  nur  so  viel  gesagt  ist,  dass  dasselbe  iiber  den  Verstand 
liinausgebt,  und  Veineswegs,  dass  dasselbe  iiberhaupt  als  dera  Denken 
unzuganglich  und  unbegreiHich  zu  betrachten  sey."  (Werke,  VI.  160).  — 
"  Weiter  ist  nun  das  Spekulative  iiberhaupt  nichts  Anderes  als  das  Ver- 
niinftige (und  zwar  das  positiv  Verniinftige),  insofern  dasselbe  gedachi 
wird."     {Ibid,  VI.  158.) 


202 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


ception/'  or  "sensibility."  Since  the  syllogism  is  the 
characteristic  act  of  the  understanding,  and  since  it  neces- 
sarily involves  experience  in  the  minor  premise  and  the 
conclusion  as  intuition  of  particulars  or  individuals,  reines 
Denken  must  eliminate  the  syllogism  itself  as  "impure," 
and  eliminate  the  understanding,  too,  as  fatally  contami- 
nated by  this  "  impurity  J  "  it  must  have  a  "pure"  method, 
absolutely  sufficient  unto  itself,  and  absolutely  independent 
not  only  of  the  sensibility,  but  also  of  the  understanding, 
on  account  of  its  liaison  with  the  sensibility  in  the  syllo- 
gism. Hence  reines  Denkeii  must  discard  Syllogistic,  and 
originate  for  itself  an  absolutely  "  pure  "  method  as  Dia- 
lectic; "pure"  in  the  sense  that  it  moves  only  in  the 
purely  rational  or  universal  element  of  the  major  premise, 
positing  nothing  but  the  universal ,  negating  nothing  but 
the  universal,  and  again  negating  nothing  but  this  negation 
of  the  universal.  Such  a  method  as  this  will  be  presump- 
tively "pure,"  free  from  the  empirical  "impurity"  which 
obstinately  lurks  in  the  minor  premise  and  the  conclusion 
of  the  syllogism,  and  which  thus  totally  unfits  syllogistic 
to  be  the  method  of  "pure  thought."  As  method,  there- 
fore, the  "  Speculative  or  Positively-Rational "  is  and  must 
be  Pure  Reason,  which  (1)  posits,  and  (2)  negates,  but  of 
course  (3)  cannot  negate  before  it  posits,  nor  yet  take  its 
positions  on  trust.  If  the  actual  process  is  to  start  at  all, 
then,  this  initial  and  purely  rational  act  of  positing,  this 
aboriginal  position  or  first  moment  of  Dialectic  without 
which  the  consistent  dialectical  process  could  not  even 
begin,  is  necessitated  as  itself  Spekulation  —  not  the  intui- 
tion or  Anschauung  of  the  sensibility,  not  the  reflection  or 
Nachdenken  of  the  understanding,  but  the  pure  insight  or 
Einsicht  of  the  speculative  reason. 

§  230.  It  is  precisely  at  this  point  that  Dialectic,  by 
HegePs  own  showing,  hopelessly  breaks  down.  He  him- 
self explicitly  admits  that  the  "  reflection  "  of  the  under- 
standing (whicli  means,  of  course.  Syllogistic)  is  both  the 
"principle"  and  the  "beginning"  of  philosophy  —  in  other 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AS  DIALECTIC 


203 


words,  its  ap^ri  in  the  twofold  Greek  sense.  ^  Again,  still 
more  explicitly,  he  admits  that  philosophy  has  its  origin 
and  starting-point  in  "  experience,  the  immediate  and  rea- 
soning consciousness  "  —  in  other  words,  the  consciousness 
which  posits  through  intuition  and  perception  and  infers 
through  reflection,  not  the  consciousness  which  posits 
through  speculation  and  proceeds  dialectically  through 
double  negation  or  absolute  negativity. ^ 

These  admissions  are  the  quite  unintentional  confession 
that  pure  reason  as  such  is  powerless  to  effect  a  start,  that 
philosophy  is  impossible  as  "pure  thought,"  and  that 
Dialectic  is  impossible  as  the  non-empirical  method  of  a 
"Positively -Rational,"  which  ex  vi  termini  must  posit 
before  it  can  negate,  and  must  therefore  begin  with  "  pure 
insight "  as  its  act  of  positing.  For,  if  "  pure  reason  "  as 
the  "Positively-Rational  "  cannot  begin  with  a  " pure  ^^  first 
position,  but  must  borrow  this  its  starting-point  from  "  im- 
pure "  experience,  then  the  professed  "  purity "  of  reines 
Denken,  and  the  professedly  "  pure  insight "  of  the  speku- 
latives  Denken,  which,  although  "absolute  negativity," 
cannot  possibly  negate  before  it  posits,  become  simply 
ridiculous. 

HegePs  quoted  admissions,  therefore,  are  fatal  to  his 
fundamental  standpoint  of  absolute  idealism  as  "pure 
thought ; "  yet  they  are  reiterated  and  confirmed  by  his 
actual  procedure.  For  Being,  as  "pure  abstraction,"  can 
be  the  product  of  nothing  but  the  understanding,  which, 
as  Hegel  has  just  taught  us  (§  226),  is  the  source  of  all 

*  *'Indem  das  Nachdenken  uberhaupt  zunachst  das  Princip  (auch  im 
Sinne  des  Anfangs)  der  Philosophic  enthalt,"  u.  s.  w.  (Werke,  VL  11). 

*  "  Die  ausdem  genannten  Bediirfnisse  hervorgehende  Entstehung  der 
Philosophie  hat  die  Erfahrung^  das  unmittelbare  und  raisonnirende 
Bewusstsein,  zum  Ausgangspunkte."  (Werke,  VI.  18).  —  *'Der  Anfang 
wird  im  Sinne  unmittelbaren  Seyns  aus  der  Anschauung  und  Wahrneh- 
mung  genommen,  —  der  Anfang  der  aiialytischen  Methode  des  endlichen 
Erkennens  ;  im  Sinn  der  Allgemeinheit  ist  er  der  Anfang  der  synthetischen 
Methode  desselben."     (Werke,  VI.  410). 


204 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


abstractions;  and  Nothing,  as  another  "pure  abstraction," 
can  likewise  have  no  origin  other  than  the  understanding. 
Hence,  as  the  avowed  and  actual  beginning  of  his  Dialectic, 
the  transition  of  Being  into  Nothing  ( Uehergan(J)  and  of 
Nothing  back  into  Being  (^Riickgang)  is  simply  the  inter- 
play of  "  abstractions  "  which  originate  in  the  understand- 
ing alone  and  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  speculative 
reason;  the  double  negation  must  conform,  then,  to  the 
ordinary  laws  of  the  understanding,  in  this  case  the  law  of 
excluded  middle,  and  can  produce  nothing  but  the  equation 
—  (—Being)  =  Being,  not  Becoming.  "  Pure  thought "  alone, 
then,  cannot  begin :  the  fundamental  first  triad  shrinks  into 
a  mere  tautology,  a  duad  which  ends  eternally  in  itself  and 
makes  no  "advance." 

If,  however,  Becoming  is  now  assumed  to  be  the  positive 
first  moment  of  a  new  triad,  it  must  be  solely  on  the  war- 
rant of  the  speculative  reason  and  its  positive  "insight;" 
for,  without  the  introduction  of  this  positive  and  wholly 
new  principle,  Dialectic  could  never  eke  out  its  funda- 
mental and  constitutive  equation  that  Reason  as  Double 
Negation  =  New  Position.  The  assumption  that  Becom- 
ing, and  not  Pure  Being,  is  the  initial  position  of  the 
second  triad  has  self -evidently  no  warrant  in  the  mere 
principle  of  "absolute  negativity,"  which  ex  vi  termini  can 
never  account  for  anything  but  negation;  hence  a  new 
principle,  namely,  absolute  positivity,  must  now  be  intro- 
duced in  the  form  of  "  speculative  reason  "  and  its  positive 
"insight."  But  this  is  a  completely  new  and  arbitrary 
assumption,  a  change  of  front  in  face  of  the  enemy,  a  total 
abandonment  of  "absolute  negativity,"  already  laid  down 
as  the  sole  principle  or  nature  of  thought  as  thought.  It 
now  appears  that  the  nature  of  thought  as  thought  is  abso- 
lute negativity  plus  absolute  positivity.  But  this  is  an  un- 
solved contradiction,  and  according  to  Dialectic,  it  cannot 
be  solved  except  by  concreting  {aufheberi)  the  two  contra- 
dictories in  some  "negative  unity"  higher  still.  Where 
shall  we  look  for  this  ?    Nowhere  in  Hegel,  if  not  to  his 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AS  DIALECTIC 


205 


"I  =  I,"  the  relation  of  opposition  in  the  Absolute  between 
Universality  and  Individuality  as  "two  I's  "  (belde  Ich)^  and 
the  "  reconciling  Yes  "  (verso hnendes  Ja)  by  which  they  ex- 
tinguish themselves  in  their  mere  "  relation  "  (  Verhdltniss) 
as  the  Pure  It.  (§  142.)  There  he  cuts  the  Gordian 
knot  in  despair  of  untying  it;  but  even  his  "reconciling 
Yes  "  would  prove  useless  in  concreting  absolute  negativity 
and  absolute  positivity,  which  even  Hegel  would  not  ven- 
ture to  hypostasize  as  belde  leh.  In  this  culminating  self- 
contradiction  of  Dialectic,  therefore,  we  look  in  vain  for 
any  concretion  or  solution,  any  "  negative  unity  "  of  abso- 
lute negativity  and  absolute  positivity.  It  must  remain  a 
riddle  without  an  answer.  What  is  clear  is,  not  only  that 
the  soi-disant  philosophy  of  "pure  thought,"  by  its  own 
confession,  begins  with  impure  experience  in  its  first  triad, 
but  also  that  it  begins  with  impure  experience  just  as  much 
in  the  first  moment  of  every  succeeding  triad,  and  so  never 
emancipates  itself  at  all,  first  or  last,  from  its  dependence 
on  experience;  for  in  every  triad  its  absolute  negativity 
brings  it  back  relentlessly  to  the  moment  with  which  it 
starts,  unchanged  and  unchangeable,  and  nothing  but  its 
absolute  positivity,  that  is,  the  freshly  positing  "  insight  '^ 
of  its  "speculative  reason,"  enables  it  to  begin  a  new  triad 
which  shall  be  in  any  sense  an  "  advance "  on  its  prede- 
cessor. Let  us,  then,  look  a  little  more  closely  at  this 
salvatory  "insight,"  in  which  must  lurk  the  secret  of  the 
absolute  positivity  of  pure  reason  as  Spekulation, 

§  231.  In  the  "  intellectual  intuition "  which  Kant 
denied  to  the  human  understanding,  while  yet  conceding  it 
to  possible  intelligences  higher  than  ours,  and  which  Fichte 
and  Schelling,  notwithstanding  Kant's  denial,  made  the 
foundation  of  their  constructive  idealisms,  is  undoubtedly 
to  be  found  the  germ  of  HegePs  "insight"  as  the  spe- 
cific act  of  the  speculative  reason.  This,  like  "  intuition  " 
(inticeri)^  is  essentially  conceived  after  the  optical  meta- 
phor or  analogy:  it  is  a  looking,  beholding,  perceiving, 
contemplating,  intuiting,  —  in   HegePs  own   expressions, 


206 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


einsehen,  gleichsam  zusehen,  Einsichtj  philosophtsche  An- 
sichty  die  theoretische  Thatigkeit  der  Idee  [dcco/Ma],  das  ewige 
Anschauen  ihrer  selhst  im  Andern,  Spekulation  [speculari], 
speciilatives  Denken,  das  Auge  des  Geistes,  etc.,  etc.  So 
conceived,  the  speculative  reason  is  said  (1)  to  transcend 
the  understanding,  to  be  exalted  above  it  as  a  superior 
faculty  or  higher  mode  of  knowing,  inasmuch  as  (2)  re- 
flection or  Syllogistic,  the  logic  of  the  understanding,  is 
already  embraced  in  speculation  or  Dialectic,  the  logic  of 
pure  reason,  and  can  be  separated  from  this  once  more  in 
all  its  original  purity  and  force  by  simply  omitting  the 
distinctively  speculative  element.  Are  these  contentions 
well  founded  ? 

(1)  Hegel  gives  us  a  hierarchy  of  faculties.  Both  the 
reflective  understanding  and  the  speculative  reason,  as 
the  two  forms  of  Denken,  transcend  the  sensibility,  so 
far  indeed  that  this,  as  the  lower  faculty  of  "experi- 
ence," must  be  excluded  altogether  from  philosophy  as 
idealism  or  reines  Denken,  Further,  of  these  two  forms 
of  Denken,  the  speculative  reason  transcends  the  reflec- 
tive understanding,  because  the  former  attains  to  Whsen 
through  its  Einsicht,  while  the  latter  attains  only  to 
Erkennen  through  its  Nachdenken,  and  because  absolutes 
Wissen  alone  is  the  culmination  of  reines  Denken,  the  Idea 
itself.  But  this  hierarchy  is  a  vulgar  superstition  of  the 
schools.  No  actual  cognition  is  possible  into  which  the 
sensibility,  the  understanding,  and  the  speculative  reason 
do  not  all  enter  inseparably,  though  in  varying  propor- 
tions according  to  the  degree  of  abstraction  and  the  scope 
of  universalization  reached  at  last;  for  the  absolute  form 
of  cognition,  whether  as  Erkennen  or  as  Wissen,  is  the 
syllogism,  as  identity  in  difference  of  reason  and  experi- 
ence.*    Erkennen  is  satisfied  with  the  truth  of  the  con- 

1  Prantl  expresses  this  truth  with  admirable  terseness  and  force :  "  Die 
Einsicht  in  das  Was  und  in  das  Warum  des  Was  ist  das  Ziel,  nach  welcheni 
das  mcnschliche  Wissen  strebt.  Wo  und  wieweit  es  einen  vermittelnden 
Weg  vein  Begriffe  zur  Definition  gibt,  ist  es  der  Syllogismus,  vermittelst 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AS  DIALECTIC 


207 


elusion,  irrespective  of  the  truth  or  the  untruth  of  the 
premises;  whence  we  have  formal  logic.  But  IViJisen  is 
satisfied  only  with  the  truth  of  the  syllogism,  including 
the  premises  as  well  as  the  conclusion;  whence  we  have 
real  logic,  or  philosophy  itself  as  Syllogistic.  Hence  the 
only  genuine  "  insight "  is  that  which  recognizes  the  equal 
necessity  (and  therefore  the  equal  dignity)  of  sensibility, 
understanding,  and  reason,  in  every  syllogism  as  a  whole 
and  in  every  element  of  the  syllogism  as  a  part. 

But  Speculative  Philosophy,  in  its  mere  onesidedness 
as  reifies  Denken,  seeks  a  substitute  for  the  syllogism  in 
the  dialectical  triad,  because  this  appears  (a  false  appear- 
ance) to  dispense  wholly  with  the  sensibility  and  the 
reflective  understanding,  and  because  its  principle  of  ab- 
solute negativity  appears  (another  false  appearance)  to 
exalt  it  above  the  laws  of  identity,  contradiction,  and 
excluded  middle.  But  the  triad  itself,  if  it  abides  by  its 
absolute  negativity,  ends,  as  has  been  proved,  in  absolute 
tautology  with  no  advance;  advance  is  possible  only 
through  the  unrecognized,  yet  constantly  used,  principle 
of  absolute  positivity;  and  this  very  advance  is  irregular, 
arbitrary,  and  delusive,  because  mere  Einsicht,  if  unme- 
diated  and  unregulated  by  Syllogistic,  sinks  to  mere  per- 
sonalism  in  philosophy,  knows  no  law  superior  to  the 
"freedom"  of  the  "spirit"  as  individual  subject,  and  is 
utterly  incommunicable  by  one  subject  to  another.  For 
Syllogistic  alone  legislates  for  all  subjects  by  laws  which 
all  subjects  can  understand  and  must  obey.  The  hierarchy 
of  faculties,  therefore,  sets  up  as  supreme  in  the  last 
resort,  amenable  to  no  law  and  subject  to  no  appeal,  the 

dessen  wir  jene  Einsicht  erlangen.  Wo  kein  Vennitteln  mehr  vorhergeht 
und  kein  Verroitteln  mehr  nachfolgt,  hat  der  Syllogismus  seinen  Anfang 
und  sein  Ende."  (Geschichte  der  Logik  im  Abendlande,  I.  321.)  Hence 
the  absolute  first,  the  unoriginated,  unmediated,  and  unsyllogized  founda- 
tion of  the  syllogism,  is  the  Apriori  of  Being,  that  aboriginal  necessity  of 
the  law  of  unit-universals  as  genus,  species,  and  specimen,  which  deter- 
mines the  form  of  the  syllogism  itself,  but  for  that  very  reason  can  be  no 
further  proved  or  explained. 


208 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


personal  and  incommunicable  "  insight ''  (Auge  des  Geistes) 
of  the  particular  philosopher,  and  thereby,  for  all  to  whom 
logic  is  law,  disproves  itself. 

Nor  is  this  all.  When  Hegel  thus  exalts  "speculative 
insight"  above  "logical  reflection,"  he  is  not  in  truth 
exalting  the  speculative  reason  above  the  reflective  under- 
standing, but,  by  his  ofKirn  standard,  degrading  the  former 
and  exalting  the  latter.  For  he  himself  makes  both  of  the 
two  unquestionably  superior  to  the  sensibility,  and  does 
not  see  that  his  "  speculative  insight "  is  nothing  but  the 
sensibility  itself  in  a  higher  form.  The  optical  metaphor 
strikes  into  the  very  essence  and  spirit  of  his  thinking, 
and  makes  the  "  speculative  insight "  an  act  of  visualiza- 
tion, rational  perception,  rational  experience,  rational 
vision,  sublimated  or  rationalized  sensuousness,  apotheosis 
of  the  sensibility  as  ^cwpta ;  and  this,  by  his  own  criterion 
of  "  purity  "  from  experietice,  is  degradation,  not  exaltation. 
It  is  no  degradation  to  Syllogistic  which  recognizes  neither 
high  nor  low  among  elements  equally  essential  to  cognition 
as  such ;  but  it  is  degradation,  not  exaltation,  to  Dialectic 
as  reines  Denken,  The  constant  infusion  of  empirical  ele- 
ments in  the  dialectical  process,  as  evolution  of  the  cate- 
gories in  the  Begriffy  is  no  new  discovery;  Trendelenburg 
and  others  made  it  long  ago.^  But  that  the  highest  act  of 
"pure  thought,"  the  very  "insight"  of  the  "speculative 
reason,"  is  itself  neither  more  nor  less  than  supersensuous 
sensuousness,  and  therefore,  by  Hegelian  rules  of  prece- 
dence, of  lower  and  not  higher  rank  or  dignity  than  tlie 
despised  "reflection"  of  the  "understanding,"  has  perhaps 

1  **  Die  Logik  ist  keiu  Erzeugniss  des  reinen  Denkens,  wie  sie  be- 
hauptet,  soudern  an  vielen  Stellen  eine  sublimirte  Anschauung,  eiue 
anticipirte  Abstraktion  der  Natur.  .  .  .  Wer  diese  £lemente  mit  ihren 
Folgen  zusammenfasst,  wird  an  den  immanenten  Fortgang  und  die  nackte 
Selbstentwickelung  des  Begriffs  nicht  mehr  glauben.  Das  Meiste  ist  von 
Erfahrang  aufgenommen.  Wenn  die  Anschauung  das  geliehene  Gut  zuriick- 
forderte,  so  kame  das  reine  Denken  an  den  Bettelstab."  (A.  Trendelen> 
burg,  Logische  Untersuchungen,  I.  78,  79.) 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AS  DIALECTIC 


209 


been  imperfectly  appreciated,  if  at  all  perceived.  But  it 
is  a  truth  which  must  deeply  aftect  the  critical  estimate, 
not  only  of  Hegelianism  and  Neo-Hegelianism,  but  also  of 
the  intuitional  philosophy  of  New  England  Transcenden- 
talism. For  the  perfection  of  syllogistic  is  the  scientific 
method,  which  sets  Dialectic  wholly  aside  as  mere  Sophis- 
tic; and  the  scientific  method  is  a  vast  advance  on  all 
intuitionalism. 

(2)  The  contention  that  the  logic  of  speculative  reason 
transcends,  yet  contains  intact,  the  logic  of  reflective 
understanding,  may  be  tested  in  a  case  of  HegePs  own 
selection.  After  stating  that  the  essence  of  "the  dogmatic 
in  the  narrower  sense"  consists  in  the  insistence  of  the 
understanding  on  its  onesided  determinations  as  ultimate 
and  fixed,  to  the  exclusion  of  their  contradictories  {entge- 
gengesetzte  means  logical  contradictories,  not  real  opposites, 
as  is  here  immediately  shown),  he  says:  — 

« This  means  in  general  the  strict  »  Either  —  Or,^  and  accord- 
ingly it  means,  for  example,  that  the  world  is  eiiher  finite  (endlich) 
or  not  finite  (unendlich),  but  only  one  of  the  two.  .  .  .  Idealism, 
however,  will  say :  the  soul  is  neither  only  finite  nor  only  not  finite, 
but  it  is  essentially  as  well  the  one  as  also  the  other,  and  conse- 
quently neither  the  one  nor  the  other  — that  is,  such  determinations 
are  invalid  in  their  isolation,  and  valid  only  as  concreted  in  then* 
negative  unity  (aufgehoben).^^^ 

This  is  saying  explicitly,  to  all  intents  and  purposes, 
that  the  law  of  excluded  middle,  without  which  the  syl- 
logism proves  nothing  and  demonstration  demonstrates 
nothing,  is  itself  invalid,  and  that  the  concretion  of  two 
contradictories  in  their  "  negative  unity  "  is  a  middle  term 
which  is  not  excluded.  Now,  if  idealism  says  that  the  two 
propositions,  "the  soul  is  finite"  and  "the  soul  is  not 
finite,"  do  7iot  exclude  any  such  "negative  unity"  as  a 
middle  term,  provided  subject  and  predicate  mean  precisely 
the  same  things  in  both  propositions^  then   idealism  says 

1  Encyklopadie,  Werke,  VI.  68. 
yOL.  11.  — 14 


210 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


what  is  simply  idiotic.  If  it  should  mean,  however,  that 
the  soul  is  finite  in  one  sense,  and  not  finite  in  another 
sense,  and  yet  omit  to  point  out  this  all-important  differ- 
ence at  the  same  time,  then  it  means  what  is  intellectually 
insincere.^  To  this  extent  Dialectic  convicts  itself  of  being 
either  idiotic  or  insincere,  and  justifies  Prantl's  sarcasm 
when  he  speaks  of  "that  colossal  jugglery  which  lies  at 
the  bottom  of  the  Hegelian  logic  as  its  restless  elastic 
spring."*  Hegel  here  proves  that,  instead  of  ahsorhinrj 
and  preserving  Syllogistic,  as  he  professes  to  do,  his  Dia- 
lectic undermines  and  destroys  it  by  nullifying  the  law  of 
excluded  middle  and  turning  demonstration  itself  into  a 
farce.  If  Syllogistic  is  valid,  that  law  is  absolutely  true; 
if  Dialectic  is  valid,  that  law  is  absolutely  false.  Between 
these  two  positions,  no  mediation  or  reconciliation  is  either 
thinkable  or  possible,  and  the  contention  that  Dialectic 
"  contains  "  Syllogistic  is  sophistry  gone  to  seed. 

1  At  the  close  of  the  Introduction  to  the  Philosophic  des  Geistes  (Werkef 
VII.  ii.  34-39),  Hegel  devotes  several  pages  to  this  subject :  "  The  Spirit  is 
the  infinite  Idea,  and  finitude  has  here  the  signification  of  the  non- 
conformity of  the  Notion  and  of  Reality,  with  the  determination  that  it 
is  an  illusion  within  itself,  —  an  illusion  which  the  Spirit  in  itself  posits 
as  a  limit,  in  order  through  its  annulment  to  have  and  to  know  freedom 
for  itself  as  its  own  essence,  that  is,  to  be  absolutely  manifested.  ...  In 
the  Spirit,  therefore,  the  finite  has  only  the  signification  of  something 
absorbed,  not  that  of  something  existent.  ...  It  is  for  this  reason  an 
empty  expression  if  one  says:  '  There  are  finite  spirits.*  The  Spirit  as 
Spirit  is  not  finite,  it  has  finiteness  in  itself,  but  only  as  something  to  be 
absorbed  and  as  absorbed.  .  .  .  The  Spirit  is  therefore  as  well  infinite 
as  finite,  and  neither  only  the  one  nor  only  the  other,"  etc.  All  that  con- 
cerns us  here  is  to  note  that  Hegel  in  no  wise  escapes  or  weakens  the  law 
of  excluded  middle.  He  affirms  that  "  the  Spirit  "  is  infinite  ;  he  discovers 
no  mode  of  showing  that  **  the  Spirit "  both  is  and  is  not  finite.  He 
merely  shows  that  "  the  Spirit "  is  Tiot  finite  in  one  sense  of  the  word, 
but  has  finiteness  in  itself  in  a  wholly  different  sense  of  it.  The  same  is 
just  as  true  of  Space,  which  is  infinite,  and  infinite  only,  yet  has  finite 
bodies  in  itself.  His  rejection  of  the  "Either —  Or,"  and  his  attempt  to 
discover  a  tenable  middle  term  between  is  and  is  notf  are  complete  failures, 
and  Dialectic  exhibits  itself  again  as  nothing  but  Sophistic. 
3  C.  Prantl,  Geschichte  der  Logik,  I.  153. 


( 


/ 


\ 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AS  DIALECTIC 


211 


§  232.  The  true  "insight,"  therefore,  which  Syllogistic 
is  the  last  to  deny  —  namely,  that  which,  in  the  already 
quoted  words  of  Prantl,  as  "  iusight  into  the  what  and  the 
why  of  the  what,  is  the  aim  which  human  knowledge 
strives  to  win"  —  must  be  won  by  "the  mediating  way 
from  the  concept  to  the  definition,"  and  this  mediating 
way  is  "the  syllogism"  itself.  But  Hegel  chafes  under 
the  rigor  of  the  syllogism;  he  would  fain  dispense  with  it 
and  substitute  in  its  stead  the  dialectical  triad,  relying  on 
pure  contradiction  or  "absolute  negativity"  as  the  only 
"motion  of  the  Begriff,^^  So  irresistible,  however,  is  the 
power  of  truth,  that,  in  order  to  attain  his  "speculative 
insight,"  we  find  him  driven  to  assume  in  his  Begriff^  not 
only  the  motion  of  absolute  negativity,  but  also  another 
motion  which  contradicts  it,  namely,  that  of  absolute  posi- 
tivity.  In  his  first  and  fundamental  triad,  he  starts  with 
Being  as  the  Undetermined  —  a  pure  abstraction  of  the 
reflective  understanding;  he  arrives  at  Becoming  as  the 
Determined  —  a  pure  "insight"  of  the  "speculative  or 
positively-rational,"  that  is,  of  the  speculative  reason. 
How  does  he  get  there  ?  The  advance  is  from  indetermi- 
nation  to  determination :  what  posits  the  determinations  ? 
Not  double  negation  or  absolute  negativity,  for  this,  as  we 
have  seen,  leads  him  straight  back  to  —  (—  Being)  =  Being, 
that  is,  to  the  Undetermined  with  which  he  started:  noth- 
ing can  lead  him  forward  to  Becoming,  or  the  Determined, 
as  a  new  position  in  advance  of  the  first,  except  Elnsicht 
or  Spekulation  as  absolute  positivity.  This  absolute  posi- 
tivity,  then,  not  at  all  absolute  negativity  or  pure  contra- 
diction, ought  to  have  been  proclaimed  from  the  beginning 
as  the  real  essence  of  Thought,  as  it  is  of  Being.  But  this 
absolute  positivity,  this  Einsicht  or  Spekulation^  is  nothing 
in  the  world  but  Experience,  intuition,  the  supersensuous 
sensuousness  which  exposes  the  utter  hollowness  of  the 
pretensions  of  "  pure  thought ; "  and  these  hollow  preten- 
sions of  being  pure  from  all  experience,  when  experience 
itself  is  the  essential  characteristic  of  the  highest  dialec- 


212 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


tical  act  as  "speculative  insight,"  exhibit  Dialectic  in  its 
true  light  as  nothing  but  Sophistic.  For  its  essential  prin- 
ciple, the  pure  productiveness  of  contradiction  as  double 
negation  or  absolute  negativity,  proves  to  be  productive  of 
nothing;  it  simply  reproduces  the  absolute  indetermination 
of  Pure  Being;  and  the  fresh  position  made  in  Becoming, 
as  definite  determination,  is  effected  solely  by  the  unac- 
knowledged principle  of  absolute  positivity,  or  experience 
in  its  sublimated  form  of  "  speculative  insight "  or  rational 
intuition  {Anschauen).  Positive  intuition,  then,  not  abso- 
lute negativity,  is  the  only  real  link  of  connection  in  the 
dialectical  chain;  it  alone  connects  triad  with  triad;  it 
alone  is  the  positing  principle,  the  absolute  positivity 
without  which  the  absolute  negativity  is  as  sterile  as  the 
meaningless,  purposeless,  resultless  undulations  of  the  sea, 
and  without  which  the  "new  position,"  attributed  mislead- 
ingly  to  "  double  negation,"  could  never  be  made.  The  act 
of  concretion  by  which  two  contradictories  are  aufgehoben 
in  their  negative  unity  as  a  new  position,  and  in  which  lies 
the  magical  spell  of  the  whole  evolution  of  the  categories, 
consists  in  the  intuitive  "  insight "  of  the  speculative  reason, 
the  empirical  sensuousness  common  alike  to  the  eye  of  the 
body  and  the  eye  of  the  spirit  {das  Auge  des  Geistes).  And 
thus  the  "  experience "  from  which  reines  Denken  aspires 
and  pretends  to  be  absolutely  free  turns  out  to  be  the  very 
highest  act  of  Vemunft  or  Denken  itself,  as  immediate  or 
unmediated  Einsicht  or  Spekulation, 

§  233.  In  the  light  of  the  foregoing  criticisms,  then,  the 
dialectical  process  as  illustrated  in  Hegel's  first  triad  (and 
no  less  in  the  triads  that  follow)  really  resolves  itself,  not 
into  three,  but  into  four  constitutive  moments. 

(1)  The  reflective  understanding  posits  or  presents  Be- 
ing as  pure  immediacy,  simple  unity  of  the  abstract  uni- 
versal, absolute  abstraction  from  all  experience.  The 
content  is  pure  indetermination,  or  0. 

(2)  Pure  reason  as  the  "negatively-rational"  negates 
Being  by  identifying  it  with  its  contradictory  No-Being  or 


1 


-PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AS  DIALECTIC 


213 


pure  Nothing,  and  forthwith  repeats  this  act  of  negation 
by  negating  its  result.  But  the  second  negation  as  No 
No-Being  or  No  Nothing  merely  brings  thought  back  once 
more  to  simple  immediate  Being,  the  original  position 
without  advance.  The  content  is  again  pure  indetermina- 
tion, or  0. 

(3)  Pure  reason  as  the  "  positively  rational "  now  imme- 
diately, that  is,  without  mediation,  "  sees  "  (einsieht)  that 
Being  and  Nothing,  after  all,  are  only  onesided  elements 
of  the  truth  {Einseitigkeiten),  But  it  can  "see"  this 
higher  real  truth  only  by  actually  "positing"  it,  that  is, 
only  by  annulling  the  independent  separateness  of  Being 
and  Nothing  as  abstract  universals  and  combining  or  con- 
creting them  in  their  negative  unity  (Sich-Aufheben).  But 
the  "  negative  unity  "  so  formed  contains  no  more  in  fact 
than  the  original  "  simple  unity ; "  it  adds  nothing  to  the 
latter  but  a  pure  act  of  the  positing  reason  (Betoegung  des 
Begriffs),  which  posits  no  determination  save  its  own  self- 
determination  {Selbsthestimmen),  This  self-determination 
of  reason  is  so  far  the  only  "new position."  It  is  the  pure 
form  of  the  triad,  and  neither  adds  nor  can  add  to  its  con- 
tent. It  is  the  speculative  act  of  "  insight "  as  the  act  of 
"concretion"  (Einsicht  sls  Auflieben),  which  is  essentially 
identical  with  Kant's  "combination"  (Verbindung,  con- 
junctioy  synthesis  a  prioH) ;  and  its  only  actual  product  or 
"  concrete  result "  {das  Hesultat,  das  Konkrete)  is  the  self- 
determination  produced,  that  is,  itself  as  the  mere  form  of 
the  triad.  The  "  concrete  result "  is  certainly  not  Becom- 
ing, as  something  really  determinate  and  different  from 
either  Being  or  Nothing.  For  no  "concrete  result"  can 
possibly  contain  more  than  what  the  concreted  elements 
themselves  contain,  and  Being  -f  Nothing,  by  Hegel's  own 
showing  are  simply  0  +  0.  But  0  4-0  =  0;  indetermi- 
nation 4-  indetermination  do  not  =  determination,  and 
Being  -f  Nothing  do  not  =  Becoming.  Hence  the  pro- 
fessedly "  positive  "  content  of  the  third  moment  is  again 
indetermination,  or  0 ;  and  again  no  advance  is  made. 


lyf 


i 


I'     I 


214 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


(4)  Consequently,  in  order  to  arrive  at  Becoming  at  all, 
a  fourth  moment  is  indispensable.  The  world  of  Being  is 
pure  abstraction  or  indetermination ;  the  world  of  Nothing, 
again,  is  pure  abstraction  or  indetermination ;  and  no  "  in- 
sight," be  it  finite  or  infinite,  can  "see"  in  them  what 
does  not  exist  in  them  —  determination.  Even  if  specula- 
tive reason  ("  insight "  with  nothing  to  "  see  ")  can  proceed 
to  determine  itself,  and  then  "  see  "  its  own  self-determin- 
ation (pure  form  of  the  triad  with  absolutely  no  content), 
it  still  remains  infinitely  distant  from  Becoming  as  the 
world  of  Existence  or  Determined  Being.  To  arrive  at 
this,  therefore,  recourse  must  be  had  either  to  discovery  of 
real  determinations,  which  is  experience,  or  else  to  pro- 
duction of  real  determinations,  which  is  creation  out  of 
nothing  (Fichte's  absolutes  Selhsterzetigen  aus  Nichts), 
Hence  the  "  insight "  which  is  to  arrive  at  Becoming  by 
the  act  of  aufheben  must  include,  not  merely  absolute 
negativity,  which  produces  nothing,  and  self-determina- 
tion, which  produces  nothing  but  itself,  but  also  absolute 
positivity,  which  alone  can  produce  real  determination. 
Without  this  latter  element,  no  "insight"  can  possibly 
reach  Becoming  as  explained  by  Hegel  himself  (§  223). 
Since  however,  "  insight "  claims  to  reach  Becoming  in  the 
third  moment  of  the  triad,  it  must  include  absolute  posi- 
tivity, as  either  experience  or  creation  out  of  nothing;  and 
this  must  be  a  fourth  moment  over  and  above  "  position," 
"  negation,"  and  "  negation  of  negation  "  —  a  fourth  moment 
which  is  unconfessed,  yet  without  which  no  new  position 
can  possibly  be  reached.  But  "  insight "  claims  to  be  pure 
thought;  it  cannot,  then,  include  experience,  but  must 
include  the  only  alternative,  creation  out  of  nothing;  and 
the  nature  of  pure  thought,  or  "motion  of  the  Begriffy^^ 
cannot  be,  as  Hegel  explains  it,  absolute  negativity  alone, 
but  just  as  much  absolute  positivity,  or  absolute  creation 
out  of  nothing.  This  consequence,  however,  is  the  reductio 
ad  ahsurdum  of  "  pure  thought;  "  for,  if  anything  is  absurd, 
creation  of  something  out  of  nothing  is  absurd.     The 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AS  DIALECTIC 


215 


ancient  maxim,  De  nihilo  nihil,  in  nihilum  nil  posse  reverti, 
was  right,  and  Hegel's  dismissal  of  it  without  discussion 
as  the  formula  of  "pantheism"  or  "eternity  of  matter" 
was  mere  flippancy.  In  truth,  his  unacknowledged  fourth 
moment  is  not  creation  at  all,  but  experience ;  his  arrival 
at  Becoming  as  a  new  position  is  possible  only  as  an  un- 
mediated  empirical  result,  immediate  perception  of  real 
determinations,  introduction  of  supersensuous  sensuous- 
ness  in  the  form  of  intellectuelle  Anschauung,  Einsicht^ 
Spekulation ;  and  his  Dialectic,  dependent  as  it  is  on  this 
fourth  moment  as  the  only  escape  from  endless  oscillation 
between  0  and  0,  is  capable  of  no  advance  without  the 
aid  of  experience.  A  chasm  yawns  between  "  negation  of 
negation,"  as  the  end  of  one  triad,  and  "new  position," 
as  the  beginning  of  another ;  the  claim  that  "  negation  of 
negation  "  is  itself  "  new  position  "  and  that "  absolute  nega- 
tivity" is  itself  "infinite  affirmation,"  that  is,  the  claim 
that  pure  contradiction  is  itself  pure  production  or  creation 
out  of  nothing,  constructs  no  bridge  across  the  chasm,  but 
is  simply  the  wish  for  the  deed;^  and  the  only  possibility 
of  a  real  "  advance  "  from  triad  to  triad  in  the  dialectical 
process  lies  in  the  surreptitious  introduction  of  professedly 
excluded  experience  as  Einsicht  itself,  an  empirical  fonrth 
moment  which  is  complete  self-destruction  of  Dialectic  as  a 
triadic  philosophical  method  of  "pure  thought." 

§  234.  Thought  the  sole  substance,  —  absolute  negativ- 
ity, or  motion  of  thought  as  incessant  self-contradiction, 
the  sole  esssence,  —  Dialectic,  or  thought's  Aufheben  of 

»  "Schon  im  endlichen  Geiste  hat  die  Idealitiit  den  Sinn  einer  in 
ihren  Anfang  zuriickkehrenden  Bewegung,  durch  welche  der  Geist  aus 
seiner  Ununterschiedenheit,  — als  derersten  Position  —  zu  eineni  Anderen, 
—  zur  Negation  jener  Position  —  fortschreitend,  und  vermittelst  der  Ne- 
gation  jener  Negation  zu  sich  selber  zuriickkommend,  sicli  als  absolute 
Negativitiit,  als  die  unendliehe  Affirmation  seiner  selbst  erweist."  (Plii- 
losophie  des  Geistes,  Werke,  VII.  ii.  20.)  Here  the  whole  essence  of 
Dialectic  concentrates  itself  in  the  enormous  assumption  of  the  equation, 
**  absolute  Negativitat  =  unendliehe  Affirmation  ; "  and  this  equation  is 
now  proved  to  be  untrue. 


V 


I'! 


216 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


contradictories,  the  sole  process, — and  daa  Konkrete,  their 
negative  unity,  the  sole  product :  these  are  the  great  deter- 
minative outlines  of  "absolute  idealism."  In  the  two  ele- 
ments of  (1)  AufJiehen,  as  the  act  by  which  concretion  is 
substituted  for  inference,  speculation  for  reflection,  and 
the  triad  for  the  syllogism,  —  and  (2)  das  KonkretCy  as 
product  of  the  act,  triadic  substitute  for  the  syllogistic 
conclusion,  and  only  real,  yet  instantly  evanescent  content 
of  cognition  {Wissen)^  — in  these  two  elements  is  concen- 
trated the  whole  of  Dialectic,  as  the  real  principle  of  the 
immanent  productiveness  of  contradiction.  For  thought  as 
thought,  the  absolute  negativity  which  is  itself  absolute 
positivity,  is  Selhstbestimmen ;  and  Sellstbestimnieii^  the 
self-determination  or  self-activity  of  the  Absolute  Univer- 
sal, particularizes  itself  in  Aufhehen  as  its  normal  act, 
and  individualizes  itself  in  das  Konkrete  as  its  normal 
product  or  result  —  being  itself  das  schlechthin  Konkrete 
as  the  Begriff  des  Begriffs  or  aftsolute  Idee  (voiyo-ts  votJo-coj?).* 
Says  Hegel :  "  I  give  the  name  of  Dialectic  to  the  moving 
principle  of  the  Begriff y  as  not  only  dissolving,  but  also 
producing,  the  particularizations  of  the  universal."  Thus 
the  dialectic  of  the  BegHff  consists  in  its  spontaneously 
and  negatively  determining  itself  as  its  own  contradictory, 
limit,  and  opposite,  and  then  educing  from  the  contradic- 
tion a  positive  content  and  result,  as  that  which  alone 
raises  its  self-determination  to  the  plane  of  evolution  and 
immanent  progress.  This  Aufhehen  or  amalgamation  of 
two  contradictories  into  a  single  positive  result  is  the  act 

1  "Das  bewegende  Princip  des  Begriffs,  als  die  Besonderungen  des 
Allgemeinen  nicht  nur  auflosend,  sondern  auch  hervorbringeiid,  heisse  ich 
Dialektik.  .  .  .  Dieser  Entwickelung  der  Idee  als  eigener  Thatigkeit 
ihrer  Vernunft  sieht  das  Denken  als  subjectives,  ohne  seiner  Seits  eine 
Zuthat  hinzu  zu  fiigen,  nur  zu.  .  .  .  Der  Gegenstand  ist  fiir  sich  selbst 
verniinftig  ;  hier  ist  es  der  Geist  in  seiner  Freiheit,  die  Wichste  Spitze  der 
selbstbewussten  Vernunft,  die  sich  Wirklichkeit  giebt  und  als  existirende 
Welt  erzeugt ;  die  Wissenschaft  hat  nur  das  Geschiift,  diese  eigene  Arbeit 
der  Vernunft  der  Sache  zum  Bewusstseyn  zu  bringen."  (Philosophie  des 
Rechts,  Werke.  VIII.  65,  66.) 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AS  DIALECTIC  217 

of  concretion,  and  the  result  itself  is  the  concrete  as  such. 
"  Dialectic  is  no  external  activity  of  a  subjective  thinking, 
but  properly  the  soul  of  the  content  itself,  which  puts 
forth  its  twigs  and  fruits  like  an  organism.  Subjective 
thinking,  without  adding  anything  on  its  own  part,  pas- 
sively contemplates  {sieht  nur  zu)  this  development  of  the 
Idea  as  the  proper  activity  of  reason  in  the  object  itself." 
"The  object  is  rational  for  itself;  here  it  is  the  Spirit  in 
its  freedom,  the  highest  pinnacle  of  self-conscious  reason, 
which  gives  itself  reality  and  produces  itself  as  the  exist- 
ing world.  Science  has  no  other  business  than  to  bring  to 
consciousness  this  immanent  labor  of  the  reason  of  the 
thing  at  hand  {Sache), ^^ 

The  criticism  now  made  goes  to  the  very  heart  of  all 
this.  Being  and  Nothing,  as  pure  abstractions,  are  abso- 
lutely empty  of  all  determinations;  they  contain  neither 
"motion  "nor  "rest,"  neither  "understanding"  nor  "rea- 
son," neither  "reflection"  nor  "speculation,"  neither  "de- 
velopment" nor  "progress;"  and  what  is  not  in  them 
cannot  be  drawn  out  of  them.  There  is,  then,  no  "im- 
manent labor  of  reason"  at  all  in  this  Sache,  Whatever 
motion  there  is  in  the  case  must  be  in  the  "subjective 
thinking  "  which  "  contemplates  "  it.  Being  does  not  of 
itself  go  over  {Uebergehen)  to  Nothing.  Nothing  does  not 
of  itself  go  back  to  Being  {Euckgehen) ;  Being  and  Noth- 
ing do  not  of  themselves  go  forward  {Fortgeheriy  Fort- 
schreUen)y  either  singly  or  together,  into  any  negative 
unity.  They,  as  abstractions,  cannot  "  go  "  at  all,  whether 
" over  "  or  " back "  or  " forward."  If  anything  goes  at  all, 
it  is  the  contemplative  thinking  of  some  subject  that  goes, 
the  "  speculative  insight "  of  some  subject  that  shifts  its 
gaze  from  one  to  the  other.  Being  and  Nothing,  defined 
as  absolute  emptiness,  are  not  endowed  with  the  agility  so 
deceptively  attributed  to  them,  and  contain  no  possibility 
of  a  determinate  content,  much  less  of  a  "soul  of  the 
content  which  puts  forth  its  twigs  and  fruits  like  an 
organism." 


1 


"L_^*_^_r    "* ' 


218 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


But,  even  granting  that  these  contentless  abstractions 
could  move  in  some  sort  in  virtue  of  being  contradictories, 
the  motion  of  contradiction  must  be  hetiveen  them  as  con- 
tradictories alone  —  it  could   not  be  from  them  to  any 
definite  point  in  "advance"  of  them.     Here  lies  the  fatal 
fallacy  of  the  triad  i?er  se,  the  falsity  of  its  essential  prin- 
ciple of  Aufheben :  the  negation  of  negation  is  not  in  itself 
a  new  position.     If  the  negation  of  Being  is   Uebergang  to 
Nothing,  it  follows  that  the  negation  of  Nothing  must  be 
Biickgang  to   Being;   it   cannot   possibly  be   Fortgang  to 
Becoming.     For  Becoming  is  the  wholly  new  position  of 
Determination:    no  game  of  battledore  and  shuttlecock 
between  Being  and  Nothing,  each  of  which  is  pure  and 
absolute  Indetermination,   can   possibly  "produce"   that 
new  position.     The  genuine  "negative  unity"  of    Ueher- 
gehen  and  EucJcgehen  is,  not  Werdeny  but  simply  Gehen  — 
neutralization  or  annulment  of  the  Uebev  and  the  Ruck- 
and  preservation  of  the  absolutely   indeterminate  Gehen 
alone.     To  advance  from   Gehen  to  Werderiy  and  thus  set 
up  Becoming  as  the  negative  unity  of  Being  and  Nothing, 
can  be  rationally  justified,  not  at  all  by  the  principle  of 
productive  contradiction,  but  only  by  an  essentially  posi- 
tive principle  as  either  Experience  or  Creation,  to  one  or 
the  other  of  which  all  really  new  position  must  be  referred. 
Absolute  negativity  ends  with  mere  Gehen;  absolute  posi- 
tivity  begins  with  Werden  ;  and  solely  by  use  of  both  these 
two  principles  can  Dialectic  effect  the  enormous  advance 
from  indeterminate  Being  to  determinate  Becoming.    Thus 
the  ostensibly  single   moment  of  Aufheben,  as   the  pure 
productiveness  of  contradiction  by  which  double  negation 
is  identified  with  new  position,  is  in  fact  two  moments 
which  differ  by  the  whole  diameter  of  existence ;  and  their 
fusion  in  AnfJieben  is  the  sleight  of  hand  by  which  the 
prestidigitator  pulls  out  of  his  professedly  empty  mouth 
an  interminable  dialectical  ribbon.* 

1  "Daa  Aufhehm  stellt  seine  wahrhafte  gedoppelte  Bedeutung  dar, 
welcbe  wir  an  deni  Negativen  gesehen  haben ;  es  ist  ein  Negircn  und 


' 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AS  DIALECTIC 


219 


§  235.  In  Aufheben  and  in  das  Konkrete  lies  the  greatest 
difficulty  of  understanding  Hegel.  Not  until  it  is  per- 
ceived that  the  third  moment  of  the  triad  is  in  reality  two 
moments,  —  that  absolute  negativity  is  exhausted  in  the 
"going  over"  and  the  "going  back,"  produces  no  genuine 
negative  unity  of  the  two  except  their  neutralization  as 
mere  abstract  "going,"  and  is  powerless  to  effect  any  real 
advance  as  "going  forward,"  —  that  absolute  positivity  is 
the  radically  new  and  independent  moment  of  "  speculative 
insight "  (a  mere  change  of  phrase  for  the  already  familiar 
"intellectual  intuition"),  which  is  supersensuous  sensuous- 
ness,  and,  as  such,  effects  the  real  advance  to  a  "new 
position  "  solely  in  virtue  of  being  experience  in  disguise, 

not  until  these   things  are  understood   does   the   real 

nature  of  each  "  new  position  "  as  a  "  concrete  result "  become 
intelligible.  Being,  the  first  given  position  of  "  Immediacy  " 
with  which  the  dialectical  evolution  begins,  is  confessedly 
a  "pure  abstraction"  of  the  "reflective  understanding" 
from  data  of  the  " sensibility,"  that,  is  from  experience.  As 
absolute  negativity,  the  Begriff  "  goes  over  "  to  Nothing 
and  "goes  back"  to  Being,  and  produces  no  negative  unity 
of  the  two  beyond  its  own  self-determining  "  motion  "  as 
bare  "going;"  as  absolute  positivity  or  "speculative  in- 
sight," a  new  moment  wholly  independent  of  the  absolute 
negativity,  the  Begriff  "goes  forward"  to  a  new  position 
as  Becoming,  and  thereby  posits   real   determination   in 

ein  Aufbewahrcn  zugleich."  (Phanomenologie  des  Geiates,  Werke,  II. 
86).  —  •*  Ihre  That  ist  die  abstrakte  Negation,  nicht  die  Negation  des 
Bewusstseyns,  welches  so  aufhcU,  dass  es  das  Aufgehobene  aufbewahrt 
und  erhcilt,  und  hierrait  seiu  Aufgehobenwerden  uberlebt."  (Ihid.  II.  144.) 
In  fact,  all  the  chief  meanings  of  aufheben  enter  into  Hegel's  dialectical 
use  of  it  in  the  triad  :  to  raise  the  two  contradictories  from  antagonism  to 
reconciliation,  to  remove  them  from  independent  separateness  to  inter- 
dependent union,  to  cancel  or  annul  them  as  isolated  abstractions,  to 
neutralize  them  as  opposites,  to  keep,  preserve,  or  absorb  them  as  co-factors  or 
co-efficients  of  the  "concrete  result."  So  understood,  it  would  be  con- 
venient to  translate  aufheben  by  the  rather  awkward  verb  "to  concrete," 
i.  tf.  to  make  grow  together.    All  other  prestidigitation  pales  before  this. 


I 


!i! 


L  I 


a 


220  THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 

place  of  absolute  indetermination,  not  at  all  as  a  result  of 
the  antecedent  double  negation,  but  as  a  result  of  its  own 
positive  "insight"  or  supersensuous  experience.     Thus  the 
first  triad  of  "pure  thought,"  thought  professedly  pure 
from  all  experience,  begins  and  ends  in  experience  alone; 
and  the  whole  series  of  triads,  really  uninfluenced  by  the 
"  going  over  "  and  the  "  going  back  "  which  is  the  futile  and 
superfluous  (because  self-neutralizing)  epiphaenomenon  of 
absolute  negativity,  is  a  really  unmediated  succession  of 
"concrete  results"  of  which  each  is  the  product  of  nothing 
but  experience  -  not,  of  course,  in  the  form  of  "  sensation, 
but  in  the  higher  form  of  the  absolute  positivity  as  "  in- 
sight."   For  experience,  as  the  Mnsicht  of  the  Auge  des 
Geistes,  that  is,  as  supersensuous  sensuousness,  is  precisely 
that  unaccountable  B  which,  as  we  saw  in  §  227,  Dialectic 
arbitrarily  adds  to  the  result  of  double  negation,  changing 
the  true  equation  of  Syllogistic,  -(-A)  =  A,  into  its  own 
untrue  equation,  -  (-A)  =  A  +  B.    This  A  +  B,  in  which 
A  is  the  whole  legitimate  result  of  double  negation  and  B 
is  the  added  and  arbitrary  result  of  "speculative  insight," 
is  a  general  formula  for  the  negative  unity  or  "  concrete 
result"  which  is  at  once  the  third  moment  of  one  triad 
and  the  first  moment  or  new  position  of  its  successor  —  the 
general  formula  for  HegeVs  das  Konkrete,  the  complete 

result  of  Aufheben. 

That  this  addition  of  B  to  A,  by  which  in  each  triad 
Hegel  effects  an  advance  from  the  barren  result  of  double 
negation  (A  alone)  to  the  concrete  result  as  A  +  B,  is 
arbitrary,  because  unaccounted  for  by  Aufhehen  as  a  single 
and  merely  negative  moment,  may  be  very  clearly  seen. 
His  argument  already  quoted  (§  227)  is  that  the  negative 
result  of  his  Dialectic,  just  because  it  is  a  result,  is  ipso 
facto  a  positive  result  at  the  same  time ;  whence  he  im- 
agines he  proves  that  his  whole  das  Konkrete  is  a  positive 
product  of  his  mere  double  negation.  This  would  be  true 
enough,  if  his  das  Konkrete  were  A  alone;  for  when  was  it 
not  known  that  "two  negatives   make  an   affirmative"? 


I 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AS  DIALECTIC  221 

But  A  alone  is  the  pure,  simple,  immediate,  indeterminate 
Being  with  which  he  started,  and  to  which  alone  his  double 
negation  brings  him  back.     Pure  Being,  however,  as  A 
alone,  will  not  serve  his  purpose  as  a  result,  for  it  is  mere 
reproduction  of  his  first  position  and  not  production  of  a 
new  one.     So  to  A  alone  he  adds  a  mysterious  B,  and  in 
A  +  B  gets  a  new  position  in  advance  of  the  old,  which, 
however,  he  still  represents  as  a  mere  product  of  his  double 
negation.     That  is,  to  Undetermined  Being  he  adds  Deter- 
mination, which  he  never  got  from  his  double  negation  at 
all,  and  now  represents  Becoming,  das  Konkrete,  der  erste 
konkrete    Gedanke  und  damit  der  erste  Begriff,  die  erste 
wahrhafte  Gedankenhestimmung,  as  the  pure  product  of  the 
double  negation  alone  !    But  Syllogistic  dissolves  the  spell 
of  the  wizard  Dialectic  by  pointing  out  that,  while,  in  all 
Becoming,  real  determinations  do  indeed  come  into  Being 
and  go  back  to  Nothing,  every  single  determination  must 
be  known  by  Experience,  or  else  remain  unknown;   that 
double  negation  gives  nothing  but  A,  that  experience  gives 
B,  and  that  it  takes  double  negation  +  experience  to  give 
A  +  B  as  rfas  Konkrete;  and  that  HegePs  Aufhehen,  instead 
of  being  a  single  moment  by  which  double  negation  pro- 
duces new  position,  is  the  confusion  of  two  moments, — 
of  which  one,  as  absolute  negativity,  uselessly  undoes  the 
first  given  position  in  order  forthwith  to  undo  its  own  un- 
doing, and  thus  reproduce  the  same  position  unchanged,  — 
and  of  which  the  other,  as  absolute  positivity,  speculative 
insight,  or  experience  in  disguise,  first  apprehends  single 
real  determinations,  and  then  (with  the  indispensable  but 
unacknowledged  aid  of  Syllogistic)  universalizes  these  as 
Becoming,  thus  effecting  by   itself  alone  whatever  real 
advance  is  made  in  the  first  triad,  and  arriving  by  itself 
alone  at  das  Konkrete  as  a  new  position.     This  is  the  col- 
lapse of  Dialectic  as  "  absolute  negativity  or  motion  of  the 
Begriff, ^^  which  is  no  sooner  understood  than,  crumbling 
by  its  own  inherent  weakness  into  a  dust-heap,  it  falls  as 
fell  the  Campanile  at  Venice. 


222 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


§  236.  But  this  is  not  all.  In  this  analysis  of  Aufhebm 
as  the  central  futility  of  Dialectic,  it  appears  very  clearly 
that  Dialectic  itself,  as  an  attempt  to  exclude  experience 
from  philosophy  and  make  pure  reason  or  reines  Denken 
do  all  the  work  of  philosophcial  construction,  is  a  mere 
"  onesidedness  "  (Einseitigkeit),  and  most  of  all  needs  to 
be  aufgehohen  in  the  interest  of  good  thinking.  Over 
against  the  great  outlines  of  absolute  Idealism  as  Dialectic 

—  namely.  Thought  the  sole  Substance,  Self-Contradiction 
of  Thought  the  sole  Essence,  Concretion  of  Thought  the 
sole  Process,  and  the  Concrete  of  Thought  the  sole  Product 

—  are  the  great  outlines  of  critical  and  constructive  Real- 
ism as  Syllogistic :  Energy  (at  once  physical  and  psychical) 
the  sole  Substance,  Reason  (intelligence)  the  sole  Essence, 
Involution  (teleology)  in  Evolution   (causality)  the   sole 
Process,  and  the  Real  All  the  sole  Product.     Rationalism 
and  empiricism,  idealism  and  materialism,  "  pure  thought " 
and  "pure  experience,"  are  nothing  but  rival  "onesided- 
nesses,"  and  by  HegePs  own  principles  should  be  aufge- 
hohen in  a  higher  truth  that  shall  negate,  yet  hold  and 
preserve  them  both.     But,   while  Dialectic  is  unable  to 
combine  them  except  in  a  concretion  of  contradictories 
which  destroy  each  other,  and,  instead  of  seeking  to  com- 
bine them,  insists  on  "  pure  thought "  alone  in  its  abstract 
isolation,  Syllogistic  combines  them  in  a  union  of  comple- 
mentaries  which   reciprocally  condition   and  realize   each 
other :  namely,  identity  in  difference  of  Reason  and  Energy 
in  Real  Being,  and  identity  in  difference  of  Reason  and 
Experience  in  all  Real  Cognition  of  Real  Being.     In  all 
that  concerns  the  interrelation  of  fundamentals,  whether 
in  existence  or  in  knowledge,  the  determining  principle  of 
Dialectic  is  contradiction  (subjectivity  of  relations),  while 
that  of  Syllogistic  is  reciprocity  and  interdependence  (ob- 
jectivity of  relations).     Hence  the   opposing  methods  — 
triad  versus  syllogism,  concretion  versus  inference,  specu- 
lation versus  reflection,   reason  pure   from   all   experience 
versus  identity  in  difference  of  experience  and  reason ;  and 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD   AS  DIALECTIC 


223 


hence,  too,  the  opposing  results  —  a  "kingdom  of  shadows  " 
or  world  of  abstract  thought-determinations  (Schattcurelch) 
versus  a  living  world  of  intelligible  realities,  the  perfectly 
abstract  das  schlechth'in  Konkrete  of  thought  alone  as  pure 
Idea  versus  the  concrete  universe  of  reason  in  energy  as 
the  Absolute  I. 

The  issue  which  Dialectic  thus  raises  with  Syllogistic  by 
repudiating  the  law  of  excluded  middle  and  its  "Either  — 
Or  "  springs  from  no  superiority  of  insight,  no  greater  pro- 
fundity of  intelligence,  no  broader  comprehensiveness  of 
reason,  no  finer  delicacy  of  spirit.  Quite  the  reverse  of 
this  is  the  truth.  The  jealous  exclusion  of  experience 
from  speculative  pliilosophy,  and  tlie  ambition  to  work 
out  a  system  and  method  of  "  pure  thought "  which  shall  be 
independent  of  it,  not  only  defeat  themselves,  inasmuch 
as  Spekulation  itself,  as  we  have  seen,  is  nothing  at  last 
but  supersensuous  Krfuhrung^  but  also  betray  their  origin 
in  the  spirit  of  monachism,  asceticism,  scholasticism  — 
the  ingrained  vulgarity  of  contempt,  for  the  wonderful  and 
beautiful  world  of  "matter."  Understood  in  their  true 
relation  as  inseparable  elements  of  all  real  knowledge, 
experience  is  the  knowledge  of  units  and  reason  the 
knowledge  of  universals,  and  both  elements  are  realized 
necessarily  in  the  syllogism,  which  is  knowledge  itself. 
If  reines  Denken  had  its  will  and  could  succeed  in  exclud- 
ing all  experience,  that  is,  all  knowledge  of  real  units, 
from  the  absolutes  Wlssen  at  which  it  aims,  the  irony  of 
its  own  success  would  be  the  attainment  of  ahsftlutcs  Un- 
vrissen  ;  for  without  experience  the  dialectical  triad  itself 
lias  proved  under  examination  to  be  impossible,  and  thus 
the  exclusion  of  experience  becomes  ijtso  facto  the  exclu- 
sion of  knowledge.  But  science  refuses  to  sanction  this 
petty  jealousy  of  experience.  Identity  in  difference  of  the 
unit  and  its  universal  in  Being  is  the  real  what  of  the  thing 
in  itself;  identity  in  difference  of  experience  and  reason 
in  Thought  is  its  concejituol  what  as  real  cognition;  and  the 
necessary  form  of  every  real  cognition  is  thus  conceptual 


224 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


subsumption  of  experience  under  reason  in  a  percept-con- 
cept, that  is,  a  syllogism.     There  is  no  other  form  of  real 
knowledge.     Hence  the  annihilation  of  Dialectic  as  pure 
knowledge  (reines  Wlssen)  is  its  own  pretension  and  effort 
to  be  the  impossible,  namely,  pure  thought  (reines  Denken), 
§  237.    In    a  profound    discussion  of    "The    Ultimate 
Difference  of  Systems,"  of  which  Erdmann  remarks  that 
it  "found  a  very  wide  circle  of  readers,"^  Trendelenburg 
reduced    all   the    other    differences   among  philosophical 
systems  to  that  which  subsists  in  their  respective  attitudes 
towards  Energy  and  Reason,  Force  and  Thought.*    This 
is   indeed  the  ultimate  metaphysical  difference  between 
Dialectic  and  Syllogistic,  as  the  methods  respectively  of 
absolute  idealism  and  scientific  realism.     Dialectic  aspires 
to  create  a  really  concrete  world  out  of  nothing  but  thought 
as  sole  substance,  and  self-contradiction  as  its  sole  essence; 
but,  even  with  the  unrecognized  aid  of  experience  in  the 
form  of  "speculative  insight,"  the  result  it  claims  to  arrive 
at  remains  still  a  mere  "concrete  of  pure  thought,"  inas- 
much as  "the  absolutely  concrete"  itself  remains  nothing 
but  the  reiner  Begriff,     This  is  not  "  the  sensuous  concrete 

1  J.  E.  Erdmann,  Grundriss  der  Geschichte  der  Philosophic,  II.  818. 

2  "Wenn  wir  nun  in  dem  bezeichneten  Sinne  Kraft  und  Gedanken 
(also  blinde  Kraft  und  bewussten  Gedanken)  einander  gegeuiiber  stellen 
und  die  Riehtung  auf  die  Einheit  voraussetzen :  so  ergiebt  sich  eine 
dreifache  Moglichkeit  ihres  gegenseitigeu  Verhaltnisses.  Enticcder  steht 
die  Kraft  vor  dem  Gedanken,  so  dass  der  Gedanke  nicht  das  Ursprtingliche 
ist,  sondeni  Ergebniss,  Product  und  Accidenz  der  blinden  Kriifte ;—  oder 
der  Gedanke  steht  vor  der  Kraft,  so  dass  die  blinde  Kraft  fiir  sich  nicht 
das  Ui-spriingliche  ist,  sondem  der  Ausfluss  des  Oedankens  ;  —  oder  end- 
lich  Gedanke  und  Kraft  sind  im  Gnmde  dieselben  und  unterscheiden  sich 
nur  in  unserer  Ansicht."  (A.  Trendelenburg,  Historische  Beitrage  zur 
Philosophic,  II.  10).  No  conception  is  here  suggested  of  a  fourth  possi- 
bility :  that  naked  Force  and  pure  Thought  are  equally  unthinkable 
because  impossible  —  that  Energy  is  the  substance  and  Reason  the  essence 
of  the  universe,  and  that  the  only  possible  relation  of  the  two  elements 
is  identity  in  difference.  This  is  the  metaphysical  ground-principle  of 
objective  logic  as  Syllogistic,  and  Ues  involved  in  that  of  the  objectivity 
of  relations. 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AS  DIALECTIC 


225 


of  intuition,"  but  "the  concrete  of  reason  and  the  Idea," 
the  "subject  as  such,"  the  "spirit;"  and  the  Begriff,  even 
when  it  "exists"  as  "subject"  or  "spirit,"  is  itself  "al- 
ways  abstract"    in   the   sense   of  excluding   whatever   is 
"immediately  perceptible."^    For  whatever  is  empirical 
must  be  absolutely  excluded  from  HegePs  "concrete   of 
reason"  — all  sensations,  all   sense-intuitions,   all  sense- 
perceptions,  all   images,  all   responses  to  unitary  stimuli 
of  whatever  nature  in  the  world  of  Energy.     In  Hegel's 
"concrete  of  pure  thought"  there  is  no  place  whatever  for 
units  of  physical  energy —  no  place  for  units  of  psychical 
energy,  except  in  the  generalized  and  abstract  form  of  pure 
self-activity  or  self-determination  as  "  absolute  negativity 
or  motion  of  the  Begriff''  —  no  place  for  things,  or  persons, 
or  anything  but  actus  punis.     With  reines  Denken  for  sole 
substance,  Negativitdt  for  sole  essence,  Aufhehen  for  sole 
process,  and  das  Konkrete  for  sole  product.  Dialectic  has 
no  real  world  but  Reason  without  Energy,  and  no  real 
1  '♦  Eben  so  wenig  ist  das  Sinnlich-Concrete  der  Auschauung  ein  Con- 
cretes der  Vernunft  und  der  Idee."    (Logik,  Werke,  VI.  404.)  -  "  In  der 
That  ...  ist  der  Begriflf  vielmehr  das  Princip  alles  Lebens  und  daniit 
zugleich  das  schlechthin  Konkrete."     {Ibid.  VI.  315.)-*' Eben  so  mag 
dann  auch  der  Begriff  immerhin  abstrakt  genannt  werden,   wenn  man 
unter  dem  Konkreten  nur  das  sinnlich  Konkrete,  iiberhaupt  das  unmittel- 
bar  Wahrnehmbare  versteht."     {Ihid.  VI.  316.)  — *' Man  hort  nichts  ge- 
wohnlicher  sagen,  als  dass  der  Begriff  etwas  Abstraktes  ist.     Diess  ist  theils 
insofern  richtig,  als  das  Denken  iiberhaupt  und  nicht  das  empirisch  kon- 
krete Sinnliche  sein  Element,  theils  als  er  noch  nicht  die  Idee  ist.  ...  Ob 
er  also  gleich  abstrakt  ist,  so  ist  er  das  Konkrete,  und  zwar  das  schlechthin 
Konkrete,  das  Subjekt  als  solches.     Das  Absolut-Konkrete  ist  der  Geist, 
—  der  Begriff,  insofern  er  als  Begriff,  sich  unterscheidend  von  seiner  Ob- 
jektivitat,  die  aber  des  Unterscheidens  unerachtet  die  seinige  bleibt,  existirt. 
Alles  andere  Konkrete,  so  reich  es  sey,  ist  nicht  so  innig  identisch  mit 
sich  und  darum  an  ihm  selbst  nicht  so  konkret,  am  wenigsten  das  was 
man  gemeinhin  unter  Konkretem  versteht,  eine  ausserlich  zusammenge- 
haltene   Mannigfaltigkeit."     (Ibid.  VI.  324.)- "Weil  ihre   [d.  h.  der 
Logik]  Gegenstande  die  einfachen,  von  aller  sinnUchen  Concretion  befreiten 
Wrsenheiten  sind,  darum  nennt  Hegel  ihr  System  *das  Reich  der  Schat- 
ten.' "  (Kuuo  Fischer,  Hegels  Leben,  Werke  und  Lehre,  Geschichte  der 
neuern  Philosophic,  VII.  i.  444.) 

VOL.   II.  — 15 


226 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


science  but  Reason  without  Experience  of  Energy.  And 
the  one  is  no  more  reality  than  the  other  is  science,  which 
is  Syllogistic  itself,  as  Knowledge  of  the  world's  Reason- 
Energy  through  human  Reason  and  Experience  in  one. 

§  238.  A  still  deeper  defect  from  the  logical  point  of 
view  lies  in  HegePs  das  Konkrete,  There  is  no  necessity 
in  it,  all  its  pretension  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.* 
There  is  no  absolute  must  in  Dialectic,  as  there  is  in  Syllo- 
gistic. The  initial  act  of  "  speculative  insight "  in  Hegel's 
process  at  once  shows  this  defect :  "  The  truth  of  Being,  as 
well  as  that  of  Nothing,  is  the  unity  of  the  two;  this  unity 
is  Becoming."  Why  Becoming  ?  Why  not  Rest?  Why 
not  Motion  ?  Why  not  Change  ?  Why  not  a  dozen  other 
things  ?  In  each  of  these,  ''insight"  can  discern  the  two 
elements  of  Being  and  Non-Being  or  Nothing ;  mere  Rest 
or  Motion  or  Change  is  just  as  much  their  unity  as  Becom- 
ing. Hegel  gives  no  reason  for  his  free,  optional,  capri- 
cious, arbitrary  choice  of  the  latter  in  preference  to  the 
former.  But  it  is  easy  to  divine  one.  In  Becoming,  but 
not  in  mere  Rest  or  Motion  or  Change,  lies  the  teleological 
implication  of  Evolution,  the  implication  of  a  terviinus  a 
quo  as  germ  and  a  termiinis  ad  quem  as  matured  form ;  and 
this  is  quite  convenient  for  the  doctrine  of  a  dialectical 
evolution  of  the  categories.  There  is,  nevertheless,  abso- 
lutely no  necessity  in  his  choice,  no  compelling  reason  for 
it;  indeed,  "insight"  admits  of  no  compelling  reason,  for, 
if  such  exists,  "insight"  instantly  ceases  to  be  mere 
"insight,"  and  becomes  an  inference  of  the  "reflective 
understanding  "  —  which  would  be  the  end  of  Vemunft  as 
Spekulation.  Hence  Hegel's  choice  is  purely  arbitrary, 
not  in  the  least  necessary;  his  "spirit"  is  pure  "freedom" 
without  necessity;  and  the  consequence  is  that  the  whole 
dialectical  chain  of  triads,  instead  of  being  a  logical  neces- 
sity, is  merely  an  artistic  device,  a  teleological  means  to  a 
freely  chosen  end,  a  logical  rope  of  sand.     A  further  con- 

^  **.  .  .  wohingegen,  wie  vorher  bemerkt  wurde,  daswahie  Denken  ein 
Denken  der  Nothwendigkeit  ist."    (Logik,  Werke,  I.  241.) 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AS  DIALECTIC 


227 


sequence  is  that  in  each  triad  the  "  concrete  result "  is  a 
mechanical  or  (at  .the  most)  a  chemical  composition,  like 
that  of  oxygen  and  hydrogen  in  the  water-molecule  HoO ; 
for  the  elements  of  the  third  moment  were  actually  sepa- 
rated in  the  first  and  second  moments,  and  become  united 
only  by  this  optional  mixture,  fusion,  or  composition,  in 
the  third. 

As  a  union  of  elements  previously  separated  in  thought 
and  admitting  of  combination  in  more  than  one  conceptual 
form  {e,  g.  Rest  or  Motion  or  Change  as  well  as  Becom- 
ing), Hegel's  das  Konkrete  is  thus  a  product  of  pure  "free- 
dom "  and  contains  no  logical  necessity.  Indeed,  his  whole 
Dialectic  is  rebellion  against  the  tyranny  of  the  "Either 
—  Or,"  the  laws  of  contradiction  and  excluded  middle  in 
which  all  logical  necessity  centres,  as  an  Other  which 
threatens  the  substantial  and  essential  "  freedom  "  of  the 
"spirit"  and  must  be  subdued  by  it;  and  it  carries  its 
rebellion  into  an  open  declaration  of  war  against  the  Aris- 
totelian or  "  common  logic  "  by  proclaiming  the  "  spirit "  to 
be  superior  to  the  law  of  contradiction  itself.^  There  is 
no  necessity  even  in  contradiction :  the  "  spirit "  makes  it, 
the  "spirit"  can  unmake  it.  What  is  this  but  a  delirium 
of  intellectual  lawlessness,  the  love  of  "  freedom  "  run  into 
Corybantic  frenzy  ?  The  only  freedom  to  be  desired  or 
respected  in  philosophy  is  freedom  under  law,  freedom  to 

1  "  Das  Wesen  des  Geistes  ist  deswegen  form  ell  die  Freiheitf  die  abso- 
lute Negativitat  des  BegrifTes  als  Identitat  mit  sich.  ...  Die  Substanz 
des  Geistes  ist  die  Freiheit,  d.  h.  das  Nichtabliangigseyn  von  eineni 
Anderen,  das  Sichaufsichselbstbeziehen.  ...  Die  Freiheit  des  Geistes  ist 
aber  nicht  bloss  eine  ausserhalb  des  Anderen,  sondern  eine  ini  Andenin 
errungene  Unabhangigkeit  voiu  Anderen,  —  kommt  nicht  durch  die  Flucht 
vor  dem  Anderen,  sondern  durch  dessen  Uel)erwinden  zur  Wirklichkeit. 
...  Die  gewohnliche  Logik  irrt  daher,  indem  sie  ineint,  der  Geist  sey  ein 
den  Widerspnich  ganzlich  von  sich  Ausschliesscndes.  .  .  .  Der  Wider- 
spnich  wird  aber  vom  Geiste  ertragen,  weil  dieser  keine  Bestinimung  in 
sich  hat,  die  er  nicht  als  eine  von  ihni  g«^setzte  und  folglich  als  eine  soicho 
wiisstp,  die  er  auch  wieder  aufheben  kauu."  (Philosophie  des  Geistes 
Werke,  VII.  ii.  24-26.) 


228 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


think  in  accordance  with  logical  necessities.  But  the 
"  concrete  result "  of  the  Hegelian  triad  contains  no  logical 
necessity,  and  regards  none.  It  is  a  pure  product  of  the 
"freedom  "  of  the  "spirit,"  which  posits,  negates,  and  con- 
cretes {auflieht)  in  absolute  irresponsibility,  with  no  aim  but 
just  to  realize  its  own  " freedom  "  as  "the  highest  pinnacle 
of  self-conscious  reason,"  and  assert  its  own  superiority  to 
every  law  that  would  determine  its  "freedom,"  excepting 
only  the  law  of  its  own  essence  as  "absolute  negativity." 
For  this  reason  the  "concrete  of  pure  thought"  has  no 
necessity,  no  fixity,  no  permanence,  no  abiding  truth,  and 
therefore  no  scientific  value. 

But  the  fixed,  permanent,  and  scientifically  valuable 
concepts  of  Syllogistic  are  quite  otherwise  constituted. 
Syllogistic  repudiates  the  superficial  concept  of  "concre- 
tion," whether  as  act  (Aufheben)  or  as  product  of  the  act 
(das  Konkrete),  not  as  altogether  untrue  or  always  worth- 
less, but  as  crude  and  uncertain  because  altogether  wilful 
and  lawless.  Instead  of  this,  it  forms  and  uses  the  fun- 
damental and  far  deeper  concept  of  necessary  identity  in 
difference  —  inseparable  unity  of  distinguishable  elements 
which  cannot  even  exist  in  isolation  and  cannot  be  con- 
ceived apart  from  each  other,  yet  can  and  must  be  con- 
ceived in  and  through  each  other  —  reciprocity  so  profound 
that  each  element  conditions  every  other  element  and  is 
conditioned  by  it.  Such  is  the  relation  of  the  sides  and 
the  angles  in  every  triangle.  Not  contradiction,  but 
reciprocity,  —  not  concretion,  but  completion,  —  not  a 
union  of  contradictories  that  devour  each  other  in  a  "  con- 
crete result"  which  itself  is  straightway  devoured  in  a 
new  contradiction,  but  a  union  of  complementaries  that 
condition,  realize,  support,  and  perpetuate  each  other  in 
abiding  organic  unity :  that  is  the  living  and  lasting  prod- 
uct of  the  syllogism,  as  contrasted  with  the  ephemeral 
and  mocking  product  of  the  triad.  For  the  syllogistic 
conclusion  is  identity  in  difference  of  its  own  premises 
as  the  universal  and  the  unit,  —  self -mediating  and  self- 


PHILOSOPIIICAL  METHOD  AS  DIALECTIC 


229 


perpetuating  identity  in  difference  of  genus,  species,  and 
specimen,  —  in  the  Unit-Universal  :  (1)  as  the  necessary 
and  permanent  form  of  the  thing-in-itself  or  Object  of 
Knowledge,  and  (2)  as  the  no  less  necessary  and  permanent 
form  of  the  percept-concept  or  Knoivledge  of  the  Object, 

This  fundamental  principle  of  syllogistic  as  the  law 
of  unit-universals,  therefore,  is  itself  the  identity  in 
difference  of  Ontology  and  Epistemology,  and  develops 
still  further  the  profound  conception  of  its  great  founder, 
so  long  obscured  by  the  fog  of  nominalism,  conceptualism, 
phaenomenism,  idealism,  and  modern  subjectivism  in  gen- 
eral :  "  There  is  a  science  which  considers  Universal  Being 
and  the  Units  which  belong  to  it  in  itself  —  to  ov  y  ov  koI 
TUL  TovTto)  v7rdf)xovTa  KaO*  avro."  For  combination  of  the  Aris- 
totelian principle  that  the  real  tiniversal  is  knowable  ra- 
tionally as  genus  and  species  through  the  real  common 
essence,  and  the  (implicit)  Darwinian  principle  that  the 
real  unit  is  knowable  empirically  as  specimen  through  the 
real  individual  difference  (especially  that  of  sex),  grounds 
the  theory  of  Syllogistic  in  Being,  and  completes  it  as  the 
law  of  unit'Unlversalsy  or  necessary  identity  in  difference 
of  genus,  species,  and  specimen,  (1)  in  Being  and  (2)  in 
Thought.  Such  combination  for  the  first  time  makes  it 
possible  to  show  that  the  rational-empirical  syllogism  is 
the  one  vital  principle  of  ontology,  epistemology,  and 
ethics  —  the  law  of  evolution  through  involution  at  once 
in  Being,  in  Knowledge,  and  in  Life.  And  the  a  priori 
condition  of  the  syllogism,  as  the  movement  of  all  reason, 
human  or  divine,  is  the  three  necessary  laws  of  identity, 
contradiction,  and  excluded  middle  —  necessary  by  the 
Apriori  of  Being  that  conditions  and  determines  the  Apriori 
of  Thought. 

§  239.  In  fine,  apart  from  the  pure  logical  formalism  of 
Kant,  Syllogistic  and  Dialectic  are  the  two  great  forms  of 
Logic  which  still  contend  for  mastery  of  the  modern  mind, 
the  one  as  the  scientific  method  by  which  all  that  is  known 
of  lleason -Energy  as  a  real  universe  of  real  law  has  been 


230 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


learned,  and  the  other  as  the  speculative  method  by  which 
the  Keason  of  the  universe,  illusively  isolated  from  its 
Energy,  and  vainly  set  up  as  its  only  "truth"  in  the 
form  of  "pure  thought"  or  "absolute  idealism,"  has  been 

dreamed. 

The  essence  of  Dialectic  is  its  principle  of  Concretion 
(^Aufifehohenwerden)  —  the  principle  that  absolute  negation 
as  concretion  of  contradictories  is  itself  absolute  position 
as  the  absolutely  concrete  (the  Begriff  as  das  schlechthin 
Konkrete,  the  Idee  as   die  Eine    Totalitdt).     This  is   the 
central  principle  of  the  Hegelian  logic  as   the  positive 
productiveness  of  contradiction,  and  it  is  a  pure  sophism. 
Contradiction  as  such  produces  and  can  produce  notliing. 
The  whole  plausibility  of  the  speculative  method,  by  which 
double  negation  as  Aufheben  falsely  appears  to  produce  a 
new  ijosition  as  das  Konkrete,  lies  altogether  in  the  adroit- 
ness with  which  two  independent  and  incongruous  moments 
are  sophistically  confused  as  one  moment  in  Aufheben  it- 
self:   absolute    negativity   as    Widerspruch  and    absolute 
positivity  as   Einslcht  or    Spekulation,     This   sophistical 
confusion  once  detected  in  the  essential  constitution  of  the 
triad  as  such,  the  whole  dialectical  chain  of  triads  instantly 
falls  asunder  into  a  row  of  logically  disconnected  links,  a 
rope  of  sand;  for  the  first  moment  of  each  triad  is  posited, 
not  in  the  least  as  a  "  result "  of  double  negation  in  the 
preceding  triad,  but  as  an  act  of  new,  original,  immediate 
or  unmediated,  and  strictly  intuitive  "insight,"  that  is, 
supersensuous  sensuousness  as  direct  vision  of  the  Auge 
des  Geistes.     This,  however,  is  nothing  but  "experience," 
"perception,"  "intuition,"  relapse  to  pure  "immediacy;" 
it  is  not  "self-mediation"  or  "pure  thought"  at  all;  and 
by  Hegel's  own  standard  of  dignity  it  puts  "speculative 
reason"  below,  and  not  above,  "reflective  understanding." 
Thus   by   three   absolute   sophistries,    (1)   by   abstracting 
Reason  from  Energy  in  the  distinguishable  but  inseparable 
Reason-Energy  of  the  World,  and  then   misrepresenting 
this  absolute  abstraction  of  "pure  thought"  as  "the  abso- 


\ 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD   AS  DIALECTIC  231 

lutely  concrete,"-— (2)  by  confounding  negativity  and 
positivity  as  production  of  new  position  through  mere 
concretion  of  contradictories,  and  then  misrepresenting 
this  false  result  of  double  negation  as  logical  linkage  of 
triad  with  triad, —and  (3)  by  elevating  the  speculative 
method  above  the  scientific  method,  and  misrepresenting 
the  mere  unverified  "  insight "  of  reason  alone  as  superior 
to  verification  of  reason  by  universal  experience  in  the 
quest  for  truth,  —  Dialectic  convicts  itself  of  being  at 
bottom  pure  Sophistic.^ 

Syllogistic  is  in  reality  what  Dialectic  only  professes  to 
be  —  Objective  Logic.  Its  foundation  is,  not  the  nugatory 
principle  of  "pure  thought,"  which,  professing  to  be  "the 

1  "Das  (liirchgangige  Tlieraa  der  hegelschen  Philosophie  ist  die  ver- 
nun/tgemdsse  Enturicklung  der  Welt.      luhalt  und  Form  dieses  Systems 
sind  identisch.      Was  sich  entwickelt,  ist  das  Vemuiiftbewusstsein,  der 
Geist,  die  Stdbsterkenntniss  der  Menschheit.      Wie  oder  in  welcher  Form 
diese  Erkenntiiiss  stattfindet  und  fortschreitet,  ist  die  Form  der  begritf- 
lichen    oder    vemunftgemassen    Entwicklung.      Diese    ist    durchgangig 
logisch,  es  wird  nicht  von  Ding  zu  Ding,  sondern  von  15egriir  zu  BegrilF 
fortgeschritten  :  von  dem  entwickelten  Bi-griff  der  Vernunft,  d.  h.  von  der 
T^gik  zur  Naturi>hilosophie,  von  dieser  zur  Philosophie  dos  sulyeetiven, 
des  objectiven  Geistes,  der  Weltgeschichte,  des  absolutcn  Geistes  in  Knnst, 
Religion  und  Philosophie,  d.  h.  zur  Philoso])hie  der  Kunst,  der  Religion, 
der  Philosophie,  welche  letztere  die  Geschichte  der  Philosojihie  ist.     Dabei 
herrscht  die  Gewissheit,  dass  die  Begiiffe  nicht  bloss  dem  Wesen  der  Dinge 
entsprechen,  wic  das  Abbild  dem  Urbild,  sondern  dass  sie  das  Wesen  (b'r 
Dinge  sell>st  ausmachen,  dass  sie  das  Wesen  der  Dinge  sind.    Diese  Einheit 
hcisst  die  Idcntitiit  vm  Denken  und  Scin."     (Kuno  Fischer,  Kegels  Lebon, 
Werke  und  Lehre,  Geschichte  der  neuem  Philosoj.hie,  VIL  ii.  1174.)    That 
is.  Thought  or  Reason  is  the  sole  "  substance  "  and  the  sole  "  essence,"  both 
"content"  and  "  form,"  of  the  universe  in  its  total  reality.     In  this  ex- 
position Fischer  is  perfectly  faithful  to   Hegel.     The   Form,   or  Logical 
Idea,  is  itself  the  whole  Content,  or  Nature:  Thought  as  Thought  is  itself 
Being  as  Being  -  it  has  no  "other  "  which  is  not  itself.     This  panlogism 
is  the  absolute  suppression  of  Energy  as  an  element  of  Being  which  is 
fundamentally  "other"  than  pure  Reason  —  fundamentally  inseparable, 
but  none  the  less  fundamentally  distinguishable,  from  "the  element  of 
pure  thought."     And  this  suppression  of  En.-rgy  is  the  incurable  vice  of 

'absolute  idealism,"  the  absolute  sophism  of  Dialectic  as  objective  logic. 


(( 


232 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


absolutely  concrete,"  turns  out  to  be  the  absolutely  abstract, 
but  rather  the  principle  of  the  objectivity  of  relations  as 
necessary  and   real    identity   in  difference  of  correlated 
Energy  and  Reason,  Energy  as  the  substance  or  "  matter  " 
and  Reason  as  the  essence  or  "form"  of  this  universe 
of  law;   for  law  itself  is  the  demonstration  of  reason, 
and  changeless  law   the  demonstration    of    perfect   rea- 
son.     Unfailing    energy   is  the  universal    law  of   cause 
and  effect;  unfailing  reason  is  the  universal  law  of  end 
and  means;   and  identity  in  difference  of  unfailing  en- 
ergy and  unfailing  reason  is  the  cosmic  process  itself,  as 
identity  in  difference  of  evolution  and   involution,  that 
is,  necessary  real  identity  in  difference  of  causality  and 
teleology,  as  alike  the  way  of  the  world  and  the  way  of 
the  mind  in  the  Absolute  I.     This  one  and  only  way 
of  Being,  Knowing,  and  Doing,  of  ontology,  epistemology, 
and  ethics,  is   Syllogistic,    not  merely  as  formal  logic, 
but  also  as  real   logic  — formal  logic  because,  and  only 
because,    real    logic   (1)   as   Syllogism  of   Being,    (2)  as 
Syllogism  of  Knowledge,  and  (3)  as  Syllogism  of  Duty. 
The  syllogism  of  Being  is  subsumption  of  Energy  under 
Reason  in  the  real  Event;   the  syllogism  of  Knowledge 
is  subsumption  of  Experience  under  Reason  in  the  real 
Cognition;  and  the  syllogism  of  Duty  is  subsumption  of 
Free  Purpose  under    Right   Reason    in  the    real   Deed. 
These  three  constitute  the   Syllogism  of  Syllogisms  as 
Realism  or  Scientific  Philosophy,  which  is  subsumption 
of  Epistemology  under  Ontology  in  Ethics,  and  therefore 
the  intellectual  groundwork  of  all  real   Religion.     The 
scientific  method  itself  as  the  perfection  of  Syllogistic  is 
subsumption  of  Observation  of  Experience  under  Hypothe- 
sis or  Reason  in  the  Verified  Result,  which  is  reduction 
of  Theory  to  Fact  in  the  real  and  known  Law  of  Nature  — 
in  other  words,  substitution  of  universal  verification  for 
mere  personal  "  insight "  through  Consensus  of  the  Com- 
petent, which  is  and  must  be  for  man  the  supreme  Criterion 
of  Truth.     The  essence  of  Syllogistic  is  its  principle,  not 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AS  DIALECTIC 


233 


of  sophistical  concretion  of  contradictories,  but  of  neces- 
sary real  and  ideal  reciprocity  of  complementaries  —  the 
principle  of  Organic  Reciprocity  as  the  Apriori  of  Being 
or  absolute  law  of  unit-universals,  that  is,  the  reciprocal 
intermediation  of  genus,  species,  and  specimen,  in  the  very 
form  and  nature  of  the  syllogism  as  such. 

So  compared,  the  ultimate  logical  difference  between 
Dialectic  and  Syllogistic  is  simply  that  between  Sophistic 
and  Heuristic ;  and  so  we  leave  it  here. 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


235 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

PHILOSOPraCAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM  AS  SYLLOGISTIC 

§  240.  Absolute  Logic  is  absolute  Syllogistic,  and  its 
essence  is  the  fundamental  or  constitutive  principle  of  the 
syllogism  as  such:  namely,  Whatever  is  evolved  as  conse- 
quent must  he  involved  as  antecedent. 

This  logical  axiom  is  simply  expression  of  the  absolute 
necessity  of  a  relation  which  "cannot  be  otherwise;"  its 
warrant  is  the  nature  of  things,  the  conditions  of  existence, 
the  Apriori  of  Being.     It  is  only  a  more  technical  rendering 
of  Persius's  gi(jnl  de  nihilo  7ilhil,  in  nihilum  nil  posse  revertl, 
or  Beneke's  das  Product  kann  nicht  viehr  enthalten,  als  was 
die  Factoren  hineingehen,  or  Emerson's   "  what  comes  out, 
that  was  put  in."     The  traditional  dictum  de  onini  et  nullo 
(that  is,  whatever  can  be  affirmed  or  denied  of  a  class  can  be 
affirmed  or  denied  of  every  member  of  that  class),  although 
often  treated  as  the  ultimate  ground  of  the  syllogism,  is  no 
principle  at  all,  but  merely  a  derivative  practical  maxim  or 
immediate  corollary  of  the  principle  above  stated ;  for  the 
dictum   itself  would  not  hold,   unless   every   member  of 
the  given  class  were  involved  in  it,  and  the  involution  or 
non-involution  of  a  given  member  in  the  given  class  is  the 
only  logical  ground  of  the  affirmation  or  denial.     So,  too, 
Kant's  alleged  "principle  on  which  rest  the  possibility  and 
validity  of  all  categorical  syllogisms,"  namely,  "  what  be- 
longs to  the  mark  of  a  thing  belongs  likewise  to  the  thing 
itself,  and  what  contradicts  the  mark  of  a  thing  contradicts 
likewise  the  thing  itself,  —  nota  nota*  est  nota  rei  ipsius, 
repiignans  nntm  repugnat  rei  ipsiy"^   is   no   principle,  but 
only  a  formal  maxim  derived  from  the  real  principle  stated 

1  Logik,  etl.  Jiisclie,  Werke,  VIII.  119. 


above ;  for  it  would  not  hold  good,  if  the  thing  did  not 
involve  all  its  marks  in  its  essence  or  Ansich,  and  if  every 
mark  did  not  involve  all  its  own  marks  in  its  own  AnsicJty 
and  if,  furthermore,  the  thing  did  not  evolve  out  of  its 
Atisich  first  the  mark,  and  then  the  mark  of  the  mark,  as 
still  "belonging  to  itself."  If  Kant  had  traced  back  his 
own  "principle  of  all  categorical  syllogisms"  to  its  logical 
condition  in  the  deeper  and  wider  principle  of  evolution 
through  involution,  it  would  have  led  him  perforce  to  abso- 
lute syllogistic  as  already  stated. 

The  essence  of  absolute  logic,  therefore,  is  its  method  of 
evolution  through  prior  involution,  and  its  jurisdiction 
must  extend  wherever  that  method  obtains.  For  this 
reason  the  sphere  of  absolute  logic  is  that  of  all  reality  and 
aU  ideality  —  the  concentric  and  coinciding  spheres  of 
Being,  Knowing,  and  Doing,  each  of  which  includes  both 
the  others  in  the  one  absolute  sphere  of  the  Absolute  I. 
So  conceived.  Being  is  not,  as  Hegel  holds,  merely  the 
most  abstract  concept  or  category  of  the  reflective  under- 
standing, and  so  the  poorest  and  emptiest  of  all  idealities ; 
on  the  contrary,  since  Being  includes  all  Knowing  and  all 
Doing  and  is  itself  included  by  them,  it  is  the  fullest  and 
richest  and  most  real  of  all  realities,  namely,  the  real 
universe  itself.  In  other  words.  Absolute  Logic,  not  as 
Dialectic,  but  as  Syllogistic,  is  the  immanent  principle  or 
law  of  the  cosmical  process  as  such,  the  one  and  only 
method  of  universal  and  eternal  evolution  through  uni- 
versal and  eternal  involution,  the  self -revealing  and  intrin- 
sically intelligible  Real  Life  of  the  Absolute  I. 

Referred,  therefore,  to  the  I  as  Absolute  Subject,  that 
is,  as  the  only  possible  and  consequently  only  conceivable 
real  unity  of  the  real  universe,  the  intrinsically  "  Unknow- 
able "  is  not  only  non-existent,  but  also  nonsensical,  in  fact 
impossible.  Everything  which  becomes  is  and  must  be 
logically  constituted,  by  the  Apriori  of  Being.  Nothing  is 
or  can  be  unknowable  in  itself  or  because  of  itself.  What- 
ever exists  must  be  a  product  of  the  cosmical   Reason- 


236 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


Energy,  working  by  the  method  of  absolute  syllogistic ;  in 
order  to  exist,  then,  it  must  at  once  be  and  he  known  and  be 
done—t\i2X  is,  done  into  being  through  knowing,  or,  in  one 
word,  evolved,  as  "  something ; "  and  even  the  cosmical  Reason- 
Energy  itself,  the  eternal  self-activity  of  evolution  through 
involution  as  the  syllogistic  process  of  Reason  as  essence 
in  Energy  as  substance,  is  certainly  "something"  to  itself, 
in  the  self-consciousness  of  the  Absolute  Subject-Object. 

Referred  to  the  I  as  human  subject,  however,  the  dis- 
tinction between  the  known  and  the  unknown  is  vitally 
important  in  absolute  logic.    Everything  within  the  reach 
of  our  knowing-faculty  may  fall  within  the  compass  of  the 
humanly  known,  while  everything  beyond  its  reach  must 
remain  within  that  of  the  humanly  unknown,  and  so  be 
"unknowable"  in  the  only  sense  that  has  a  meaning;  as, 
for  instance,  the  science  of  selenography  extends  to  the 
whole  side  of  the  moon  which  is  turned  toward  us,  but 
cannot   extend    to   that   which   is   turned   away   from  us. 
There  is  no  other  "limit  of  human  knowledge"  than  this, 
and  it  is  a  shifting  one,  constantly  receding  as   human 
knowledge  grows  by  natural  increase  or  the  invention  of 
new  artificial  aids.     All  learning  or  discovery  is  conversion 
of  the  unknown  into  the  known,  and  its  boundless  possi- 
bility implies  the  impossibility  of  the  intrinsically  unknow- 
able.    The  doctrine  of  modern  subjectivism  that  we  know 
things   phaenomenally,  or   as  they  appear,  but   not  nou- 
menally,  or  as  they  are  in  themselves,  limits  knowledge  only 
by  extinguishing  it  altogether;  for  to  know  things  as  they 
are  not  is  not  to  know  them  at  all.     That  such  a  theory 
of  necessary  and  universal  ignorance  should  have  passed 
so  long  for  a  "  theory  of  knowledge  "  will  be  a  marvel  to 

succeeding  ages. 

§  241.  Because  identity  of  working  method  is  the  uni- 
versal solvent  of  all  differences  of  worked  material,  and 
because  absolute  syllogistic  thus  holds  in  solution,  as  it 
were,  all  the  infinitely  various  elements  of  Being,  Knowing, 
and  Doing,  absolute  logic  is  the  identity  in  difference  of 


PHILOSOPrnCAL  METHOD   AND  SYSTEM 


237 


ontology,  epistemology,  and  ethics,  —  in  other  words,  the 
necessary  and  universal  unity  of  philosophy  as  such.  The 
unity  of  absolute  logic  itself  is  its  principle  of  the  neces- 
sary continuity  of  Being  —  its  principle  that  whatever  is 
evolved  as  consequent  must  be  involved  as  antecedent. 

§  242.  The  fundamental  truth  of  Ontology  is  that  all  forms 
of  real  existence,  by  the  Apriori  of  Being,  are  necessarily 
and  logically  constituted  as  unit-universals,  or  specimens, 
species,  and  genera,  —  specimens  as  things  in  themselves, 
species  and  genera  as  kinds  in  themselves,  and  things  in 
kinds  as  the  only  possible  object  of  knowledge.  "  States 
of  consciousness,"  if  they  were  the  "  only  realities,"  are 
yet  real  only  as  things  and  kinds  in  themselves,  and  subject 
as  such  to  the  laws  of  absolute  logic;  whatever  necessity 
"  for  us "  lies  in  the  Apriori  of  Thought  is  derived  from 
the  deeper-lying  and  all-including  absolute  necessity  of  the 
Apriori  of  Being,  without  which  thought  itself  could  not 
be.  Absolute  syllogistic  might  be  defined  as  the  necessary 
and  universal  interrelatedness  of  genera,  species,  and  speci- 
mens per  sCy  whether  in  Being  or  in  Thought  or  in  Act, 
not  in  the  least  as  mere  formal  classification  or  abstract 
categories  or  barren  rules,  but  rather  as  that  living  cosmical 
process  of  evolution  through  involution  by  which  Being 
eternally  produces,  sustains,  and  changes  all  its  forms. 
From  the  Darwinian  standpoint  of  the  mutability  of  species, 
Nageli  said  as  early  as  1865 :  — 

"  The  centre  of  gravity  in  natural  history  lies  no  longer  in 
species,  but  in  the  fact  that  every  systematic  category  is  conceived 
as  a  natural  unity,  which  exhibits  the  transition-point  of  a  great 
evolutional  movement.  Like  species,  genus  and  the  higher  notions 
are  no  abstractions,  but  concrete  things,  complexes  of  allied  forms 
which  have  a  common  origin.'*  * 

The  objective  reality  of  genera,  species,  and  specimens, 
and  of  the  relations  inseparable  from  them,  and  of  the  con- 

1  Quoted  in  Ueherweg's  "System  der  Logik,"  edited  by  J.  B.  Meyer, 
with  additions  in  1882,  p.  164.  Nageli's  words  are  almost  the  philosophi- 
zation  of  Darwinism. 


238 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


ditions  without  which  they  could  not  be,  constitutes  a 
Trichotomy  of  Being,  as  Things,  Relations,  and  Conditions, 
which  is  the  foundation  of  scientific  ontology.  The  very 
subjectivism  which  affects  to  question  the  reality  of  an 
external  world,  and  altogether  denies  the  possibility  of  a 
scientific  ontology,  borrows  from  the  latter,  nevertheless, 
the  distinction  of  genus  and  species  (specimen  it  does  not 
understand),  as  the  foundation  of  its  formal  logic;  for 
without  that  distinction  no  doctrine  of  the  concept,  the 
judgment,  or  the  syllogism  is  possible,  while  with  it  no 
denial  of  ontology  is  possible  without  self-contradiction, 
since  the  distinction  itself  is  ineradicably  ontological.  It 
avails  nothing  to  plead  that  in  formal  logic  genus  and 
species  are  pure  abstractions,  for  every  abstraction  depends 
on  that  from  whicli  it  is  abstracted  as  its  necessary  logical 
presupposition  ;  hence  the  abstract  relations  of  genus  and 
species  which  are  formulated  in  the  definitions  and  rules  of 
formal  logic  are  absolutely  invalid,  even  as  canons  of  formal 
truth,  unless  their  subjective  necessity  and  universality  are 
grounded  in  the  objectively  real  relations  of  genera,  species, 
and  specimens,  as  that  which  "cannot  he  otherwise''  — 
that  is,  unless  their  necessity  and  universality  in  Thought 
as  Thought  are  grounded  in  their  necessity  and  univer- 
sality in  Being  as  Being.  In  other  words,  formal  logic  has 
no  validity  whatever  which  is  not  derived  from  absolute 

logic. 

§  243.  The  fundamental  laws  of  Ontology,  or  absolute 
syllogistic  as  operative  in  both  Objective  and  Subjective 
Being,  are  these  :  — 

I.  Genera  evolve  species,  and  species  evolve  specimens; 
therefore,  genera  evolve  specimens.  That  is,  genera  evolve 
specimens  through  species,  because  species,  as  real  middle 
terms,  are  the  real  efficient  causes  of  their  si)ecimens 
(to  aiTiov  TO  ^€(rov).  This  is  the  law  of  Substance  as  Energy, 
the  law  of  causality,  the  law  of  the  world  as  mechanism, 
the  evolutional  Course  of  Nature  :  nothing  happens  without 
an  efficient  cause. 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD   AND  SYSTEM 


239 


II.  Genera  involve  species,  and  species  involve  speci- 
mens ;  therefore,  genera  involve  specimens.  That  is,  genera 
involve  specimens  through  species,  because  species,  as  real 
middle  terms,  are  the  final  causes  or  real  ends  of  their 
specimens.  This  is  the  law  of  Essence  as  Reason,  the  law 
of  teleology,  the  law  of  the  world  as  organism,  the  in- 
volutional Course  of  Mind:  nothing  happens  without  a 
siifficicjit  reason. 

III.  Genera  involve  and  evolve  specimens  through  spe- 
cies in  one  inseparable  logical  and  ontological  process  as 
the  Syllogism  of  Being.  The  only  efficient  cause  is  that 
which  effects^  or  realizes  the  End ;  the  only  sufficient  rea- 
son as  End  is  that  which  suffices,  or  satisfies  the  Good;  the 
only  perficient  ideal  is  that  which  perfects^  or  ordains  the 
Best.  Hence  the  Syllogism  of  Being  subsumes  the  causal 
through  the  teleological  under  the  ethical,  that  is,  the  me- 
chanical through  the  organic  under  the  personal.  It  is  the 
law  of  Reason  in  Energy  as  Right,  tlie  law  of  ethicality  or 
character,  the  law  of  the  world  as  person,  the  Process  of 
Essence  in  Substance,  the  Course  of  Spirit :  nothing  happens 
without  the  Good  as  efficient  cause^  sufficient  reason,  and 
perficie7it  ideal, 

IV.  Specimens,  at  once  things  in  themselves  and  things 
in  kinds,  are  perpetually  evolved  out  of  species  and  genera 
because  they  are  perpetually  involved  in  them  and  cannot 
exist  out  of  them ;  each  new  specimen  inherits  its  spe- 
cific form  (heredity)  and  acquires  its  individual  difference 
(adaptation)  in  its  own  species  alone  —  otherwise  a  new 
generation  would  not  perpetuate  its  species.  For  this  rea- 
son every  specimen  as  such  necessarily  unites  in  itself 
generic  essence,  specific  essence,  and  reific  essence  or  indi- 
vidual difference.  In  these  three  elements,  so  united  or 
combined,  consists  the  immanent  relational  constitution  of 
the  "thing  in  itself"  (Ding  an  sich)  as  only  one  specimen 
of  only  one  species  of  only  one  genus,  —  consequently,  as  a 
concrete  syllogism  in  itself,  and  for  that  very  reason  a 
necessarily  intelligible  "  object  of  knowledge."    Moreover, 


240 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


every  species  is  a  single  specimen  to  its  own  genus:  in 
which  light  its  generic  essence  becomes  now  its  specific 
essence,  and  its  specific  difference  now  its  individual  differ- 
ence or  reific  essence.  Similarly,  every  genus  is  a  single 
specimen  to  its  own  higher  genus.  Hence  every  "  thing  " 
and  every  "  kind  "  is  of  necessity  a  unit-universal,  both  one 
in  many  and  many  in  one,  by  the  Apriori  of  Being.  This 
is  the  law  of  unit-universals  as  the  law  of  individuation  — 
law  of  the  reality  of  units  of  energy  in  universal  energy,  or 
substances  in  substance,  as  monad,  particle,  corpuscle, 
molecule,  atom,  ion,  electron,  mechanism,  organism,  person, 
subject,  object,  subject-object,  or  whatever  other  "some- 
thing : "  to  wit,  nothing  exists  except  as  a  specimen,  a  uni- 
versal in  itself  and  a  unit  in  its  kind.  This  is  the  absolute 
unity  of  the  universe,  one  in  many  and  many  in  one  as  the 
Absolute  Unit-Universal,  the  summum  genus  or  genus  gen- 
erum  as  the  Absolute  I  or  summum  individuum. 

V.  The  necessary  and  constitutive  relations  of  generic, 
specific,  and  reific  essence  in  the  specimen,  or  "  thing  in  it- 
self," are  demonstration  of  the  Objectivity  of  Relations, 
as  involved  in  the  Apriori  of  Being.  That  is,  things  and 
kinds,  units  and  universals,  terms  and  their  relations,  can- 
not exist  separately ;  no  units  of  energy,  as  substance,  are 
possible  without  relations  or  universals  of  reason,  as  es- 
sence. But  such  constitutive  relations  as  these  cannot  be 
the  work  of  any  a  priori  synthetic  intellect  which  is  logi- 
cally prior  to  them  ;  for  every  such  intellect  is  itself  the 
function  or  faculty  of  a  unit-universal  of  energy,  an  I 
which,  even  as  one  pure  subject  with  various  faculties  of 
thought,  feeling,  and  will,  absolutely  presupposes  these 
very  relations.  They  are  the  necessary  Ansich  of  what- 
ever is  real ;  they  are  logically  prior  alike  to  Energy  and 
to  Reason;  they  simply  "cannot  be  otherwise"  (Aris- 
totle's TO  8*  dmyKawv  ovk  ^Scx^tcu  oXXcos  cxct*')-^     They  belong 

1  Cf.  Kant,  Kritik  der  reinen  Vernunft,  Einleitung,  Werke,  III.  34 : 
"Erfahrung  lehrt  uns  zwar,  dass  etwas  so  oder  so  beschaflfeu  sei,  aber 
nicht,  dass  es  nicht  anders  sein  konne."    Si»eucer's  notion  that  simple 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


241 


to  the  absolutely  objective  yet  a  priori  necessity  which 
conditions  the  very  possibility  of  existence  in  any  real 
form,  just  as  the  necessary  contraposition  of  greatest  side 
and  greatest  angle  is  an  absolute  condicio  sine  qua  nan  of 
every  plane  triangle,  whether  in  sensuous  experience,  in 
sensuous  imagination,  or  in  Kant's  illusory  "  pure  intuition  a 
priori "  and  free  mathematical  "  construction,"  —  there  may 
or  may  not  be  triangles,  but,  if  a  triangle  is,  it  must  be  built 
on  that  plan.  They  are  the  Apriori  of  Being  as  Being,  and 
sole  possible  explanation  of  the  Apriori  of  Thought.  Other 
relations,  however,  which  "  can  be  otherwise  "  (Aristotle's 
ivUx^rai  aXXu)^  ^X"*')?  constitute  the  Aposteriori  of  Being, 
the  field  of  contingency  and  change,  the  sphere  of  freedom ; 
and  all  such  relations  must  originate  in  plastic  or  form- 
giving  reason  itself,  as  free  in  Nature  as  in  Man.  Absolute 
Fate  and  Absolute  Chance  are  equally  unthinkable  because 
equally  impossible.  Thus  necessity  and  freedom  are  the 
warp  and  woof  of  the  world,  which  would  be  impossible  if 
either  element  were  wanting :  nothing  happens  except  as  a 

accumulation  of  experiences  through  a  long  series  of  generations  will  at  last 
constitute  an  absolute  necessity  of  reason  rests  on  inability  to  grasp  this 
distinction,  which  Kant  adopts  from  Aristotle,  yet  without  knowing  how 
to  use  it.  For  he  leaves  the  constitution  of  "pure  reason  a  priori,"  the 
organic  unity  of  '*  consciousness  in  general,"  as  a  mere  empirical  datum  at 
last,  a  mere  given  fact  of  existence.  From  this  no  true  Apriori  of  Thought, 
no  real  necessity  at  all,  can  be  deduced.  Yet  Kant  seeks  to  deduce  all 
necessity  in  thinking  from  pure  "spontaneity  "  in  the  subject  as  '*  synthe- 
sis a  priori:  "  " .  .  .  indem  wir  die  Analysis  nur  so  weit  treiben  diirfen,  als 
aie  unentbehrlich  nothwendig  ist,  um  die  Principien  der  Synthesis  a  priori, 
als  worum  es  uns  nur  zu  thun  ist,  in  ihrem  ganzen  Umfange  einzusehen." 
(Kr.  d.  r.  Vern.  Einleit.  Werke,  111.  49.)  Such  deduction  is  no  deduction. 
Necessity  cannot  be  deduced  from  or  found  in  the  subject  as  pure  "  spon- 
taneity "  or  "self-activity  "in  "  synthesis  a  priori,"  i.  e.  in  the  subject  as 
sole  and  absolute  originator  of  all  relations  or  "combinations"  (Ibid. 
Werke,  III.  114,  115) :  yet  this  pure  spontaneity  or  absolute  non-necessity 
is  the  only  source  of  the  "necessity  and  universality"  which  Kant  makes 
the  marks  of  all  "  pure  knowledge  a  priori"  and  identifies  with  all  "ob- 
jective validity."  The  logic  is  vain  enough  which  deduces  necessity  from 
non -necessity. 

VOL.  II.  — 16 


242 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


243 


free  act  within  necessary  laws.  This  principle,  so  far  as  it 
goes,  is  the  identity  in  difference  of  science  and  philosophy : 
science  as  special  sciences  sees  necessity,  but  science  as 
philosophy  sees  necessity  and  freedom,  too. 

VI.   The  objectivity  or  equal  reality  of  Things  and  Re- 
lations is  self-evidently  involved  in  a  world  of  things  which 
are  necessarily  related  in  and  among  themselves  as  genera, 
species,  and  specimens.     This  objectivity  of  relations  is  the 
real  ground  of  all  real  Form,  the  immanent  Law  of  Reality, 
the   Apriori  of  Being  in  its  narrower   significance.     But, 
since  no  form  can  be  real  which  is  not  in  itself  possible,  the 
Objectivity  of  Conditions  is  the  real  ground  of  the  pos- 
sibility of  all  real  form,  the  immanent  Law  of  Potentiality, 
the  Apriori  of  Being  in  its  absolute  significance.     For  the 
real  is  the  evolved  potential,  while  the  potential  is  the  in- 
volved real,  and  nothing  can  be  evolved  which  is  not  first 
involved.     Hence   the   potential   conditions  the  real,   and 
involution  conditions  evolution,  as  logical  priiis  in  the  ab- 
solute  Aristotelian   sense   (Trpdrcpoi/  t^   </>v<r€i).     This  is  in 
other  words  the  constitutive  principle  of  absolute  logic  — 
whatever  is  evolved  as  consequent  must  be  involved  as 
antecedent.     In  its  full  meaning,  therefore,  the  Apriori  of 
Being  is  the  totality  of  the  objective  Conditions  which  con- 
stitute the  Immanent  Necessity  of  Being  itself  —  the  ground 
of  its  reality  as  the  process  of  eternally  self-realizing  jk)- 
tentiality.    These  conditions  of  Being  are :  (1)  Space  and 
Time,  since  to  be  "  spaceless  and  timeless,"  that  is,  to  be 
nowhere  and  never,  is  simply  not  to  be  ;  (2)  Substance  as 
Energy,  since  to  be  is  to  act,  and  not  to  act  is  not  to  be ; 
(3)  Essence  as  Reason,  since  to  think  is  to  relate,  to  be 
is  to  be  related,  and  to  be  out  of  relation  is  to  be  out  of 
being  and  not  to  be  ;  (4)  Process  of  Essence  in  Substance 
or  of  Reason  in  Energy   as  Syllogistic,  that  is,  evolution 
through  involution,  motion  from  the  potential  to  the  real 
and  from  the  involved  to  the  evolved,  or  production  of  im- 
manent relational  constitution  as  real  form,  since  no  other 
process  than  the  Syllogism  of  Being  could  possibly  evolve 


1 


new  specimens  out  of  pre-existing  specimens,  species,  and 
genera,  while  ceasing  to  do  this  is  to  die  or  not  to  be  ;  and 
(5)  Being  itself  as  Reality,  or  identity  in  difference  of  sub- 
stance and  essence  and  process  in  space  and  time,  since  real- 
ity could  never  be  unless  reality  had  always  been  ("  naught 
from  naught  comes  and  naught  to  naught  returns  "  —  the 
Absolute  I  as  Necessary  Being).  Consequently,  the  objec- 
tivity of  conditions  is  the  principle  of  the  identity  in  differ- 
ence of  reality  and  potentiality  in  the  syllogism,  the  law  of 
the  self-dependent  continuity  of  Being  as  Acting  and  Relat- 
ing :  nothing  happens  except  as  the  evolved  consequent  of  an 
involved  antecedent  —  as  at  once  the  effect  of  an  involved  cause, 
the  fulfilment  of  an  involved  end,  and  the  realization  of  an 
involved  ideal.  This  interprets  and  further  develops  the 
principle  at  the  close  of  the  preceding  paragraph. 

VII.   Genus,  species,  and  specimen  are  the  major,  middle, 
and   minor   terms  in  the  Syllogism  of   Being.     Nature's 
premises  are  the  perpetual  and  universal  presence  of  these 
three  elements,  and  her  conclusion  or  objective  inference  is 
the  endless  production  of  new  specimens;  each  of  which, 
being  in  itself  a  concrete  syllogism  in  the  development 
of  its  own  immanent   relational  constitution   as  generic, 
specific,   and  reific  essence,  repeats  the  same  logical  and 
ontological    ratiocination.      This    fundamental    syllogistic 
movement,  determined  to  be  such  by  the  Apriori  of  Being, 
necessarily  moulds  all  kinds  and  all  things,  clearly  in  the 
organic  world,   less  clearly  but  no  less   certainly  in  the 
so-called  but  mis-called  inorganic  world;  even  moderate 
acuteness  can  easily  identify  the  process  everywhere.     The 
universe  persists  solely  through  endless  syllogizing,  or  end- 
less subsumption  of  particulars  under  uuiversals  in  new 
units,  and  all  methodology,  whether  of  Being,  of  Knowing, 
or  of  Doing,  ultimates  in  the  syllogism  as  the  one  neces- 
sary and  universal  method  of  methods  —  course  of  Nature, 
course  of  Mind,  course  of  Spirit.    For  the  essence  of  the 
syllogism  is  equation  of  the  implicit  or  potential  relations 
involved  in  the  antecedent  with  the  explicit  or  real  rela- 


244 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


245 


tions  evolved  in  the  consequent;  and  this  metamorphosis 
of  potentiality  into  reality,  of  thought  into  fact,  of  the 
form  that  may  be  into  the  form  that  is,  of  the  reason  that 
relates  into  the  energy  that  makes,  is  not  only  the  secret 
of  the  syllogism,  but  the  mystery  of  life.^  Here  we  touch 
bottom  in  our  deep-sea  soundings;  we  cannot  get  below 
that  Apriori  of  Being  which  determines  the  syllogism  to 
be  the  necessary  form  of  the  life-process  itself,  and  which 
determines  the  essence  of  the  syllogism  to  be  necessary  rer 
lational  equation  of  the  antecedent  as  Thought  with  the 
consequent  as  Existence  (cv  roirrots  17  to-onys  cvon;?).  On  no 
other  terms  can  both  the  quantity  of  energy  and  the  conti- 
nuity of  reason  remain  constants  in  the  cosmical  process. 
Evolution  without  involution  (and  such  is  Spencer's  "  Infi- 
nite and  Eternal  Energy  from  which  all  things  proceed  "  — 
Energy  without  Reason)  strikes  over  into  the  ostensibly 
rejected  process  of  "creation  of  something  out  of  noth- 
ing ; "  for  it  is  a  blindly  mechanical  process  of  production 
stretched  out  in  time  into  an  infinite  series  of  infini- 
tesimal increments  of  Being,  each  of  which  constitutes  an 

I  To  Schleiermacher,  who  had  objected  to  the  syllogism  that  the  conclu- 
sion gives  no  '*  progress  in  thought,"  no  "new  cognition,"  no  "new  in- 
sight," and  that  the  premises  merely  show  how  we  arrive  at  it  by  mediation, 
Ueberweg  excellently  replied  (System  der  Logik,  ed.  1882,  p.  322) :  "  But 
there  certainly  lies  a  new  insight  in  the  fusion  into  one  judgment  of  two 
concepts  which  were  previously  thought  in  two  diflfercnt  judgments,  sep- 
arated from  each  other  and  connected  with  a  third."    More  than  this,  how- 
ever, needs  to  be  said.     The  "  new  insight "  is  already  implied,  involved, 
or  potential  in  the  premises,  through  the  objectively  necessary  relation 
which  unites  all  the  particulars  in  their  universal ;  but  it  becomes  ex- 
pressed, evolved,  realized,  asserted,  or  judged,  in  the  conclusion  alone. 
In  this  transition  from  the  potential  to  the  real,  from  the  involved  to  the 
evolved,  lies  the  "  newness  "  of  the  "  insight,"  the  march  of  thought,  the 
logical  necessity  of  the  syllogism  as  resting  at  bottom  on  the  relational 
identity,  yet  real  difference,  of  the  antecedent  and  the  consequent.     Who- 
ever clearly  gets  the  full  meaning  of  this  will  see  as  far  as  may  be  seen  into 
that  movement  from  ideality  to  reality  which  is  not  only  the  secret  of  the 
syllogism  and  the  mystery  of  life,  but  also  the  history  of  Nature,  the  truth 
of  Spirit,  and  the  inexhaustible  creativeness  of  Being  as  Being. 


increase  of  Being  as  a  whole  —  an  increase  of  relations 
evolved  uncompensated  by  relations  involved,  and  there- 
fore a  "creation"  of  real  living  forms.  But  evolution 
through  involution  maintains  the  living  equality  of  Poten- 
tiality and  Reality,  Thought  and  Existence,  Reason  and 
Energy,  in  a  Being  which  is  incapable  alike  of  increase 
and  of  decrease.  When  the  cosmical  process  is  conceived 
as  Syllogistic,  the  eternal  equality  of  antecedent  and  con- 
sequent in  the  syllogism  becomes  the  eternal  equality  of 
reason  and  energy  in  the  Absolute  I ;  the  syllogistic  cos- 
mical process  becomes  the  demonstration  that  the  universe 
is  alive ;  and  the  living  universe  itself  becomes  the  demon- 
stration of  God,  when  Being  reveals  itself  as  Knowing  and 

Doing,  too. 

§  244.   The  fundamental  truth  of  Epistemology  lies  in 
the  principle  of  the  strictly  logical  Idealization  of  the  Real. 
This  is  the  principle  that  the  object  determines  the  subject 
in  Knowing,  —  that  the  forms  of  knowledge  are  of  neces- 
sity determined  by  the  forms  of  existence,  —  that  all  forms 
of  thought  not  so  determined  are  forms  of  creative  fancy, 
poetic  art,  free  imagination,  insane  hallucination,  or  sheer 
illusion,  — that  "things  in  themselves,"  that  is,  things  in 
their  internal  and  external  relations,  so  far  from  being  "un- 
knowable," are  the  only  possible  objects  of  knowledge,  — 
that  Kant's  "  mere  phaenomena,"  or  things  out  of  them- 
selves,  are  pure  figments  or  objects  of   ignorance,  —  and 
that  Hegers  "  phaenomena  in  themselves  "  are  nothing  but 
"  things  in  themselves  "  under  another  name  and  fall  at  once 
under  the  laws  of  absolute  logic.     The  grand  desideratum 
of  philosophy  at  the  dawn  of  the  twentieth  century  is  an 
epistemology  which  shall  recognize  natural  science  as  real 
knowledge   of  real  existence,   and  confirm   the  scientific 
method  as  that  necessary  identity  in  difference  of  experi- 
ence and  reason  which  grounds  the  Syllogism  of  Knowing 
in  the  Syllogism  of  Being.     With  nothing  better  than  the 
brilliant,  elaborate,  yet  intellectually  futile   Erkenntniss- 
theorie  to  rely  upon,  philosophical  subjectivism  must  perish 


246 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


247 


of  its  own  effeminacy  and  degeneracy,  and  leave  nothing 
but  a  thoroughly  onesided  physicism  to  inherit  the  earth. 
For  the  Kantian  epistemology  is  simply  the  nominalistic 
conceptualism  of  the  middle  ages  rij>ened  and  gone  to  seed, 
and  nothing  short  of  Syllogistic  wiU  avail  to  develop  the 
rude  vigor  of  modern  physicism  into  the  trained  and  dis- 
ciplined strength  of  scientific  realism,  —  that  is,  a  irpwrrf 
<t)LX.o(To<l>La  at  once  acute,  comprehensive,  and  profound, 
thoroughly  modernized  by  Darwinian  reform  of  the  Aris- 
totelian Paradox  (as  explained  in  Chapters  VI  and  VII),  and 
brought  to  complete  internal  harmony  by  the  principles  of 
absolute  logic.  In  Greek  realism,  not  in  Anglican  or  Ger- 
man idealism,  lies  the  germ  of  a  truly  modern  philosophy. 

The  peculiar  specimens,  species,  and  genera  with  which 
epistemology  deals,  the  things  in  kinds  which  constitute 
the  ultimate  elements  of  intelligence  as  conscious  subsump- 
tion  of  particulars  under  universals  in  new  units,  are  per- 
cepts, concepts,  and  ideas  :  percepts  of  specimens,  concepts 
of  species,  ideas  of  genera.*  All  particular  sciences  (includ- 
ing psychology)  rest  upon  and  branch  out  of  epistemology 
as  the  universal  science  of  Knowing,  the  iirum^firf  which 
is  determined  by  to  w  y  ov;  that  is,  Knowing  is  ultimately 
grounded  in  Being,  and  epistemology  in  ontology,  and 
formal  logic  itself  in  absolute  logic  as  Syllogistic.  Hence 
the  elements  of  intelligence  are  ex  vi  termini  true  percepts, 

*  Being  precisely  defined  by  its  object,  this  use  of  the  word  idea  to  de- 
note the  subjective  cofrelate  of  the  objective  genus,  or  the  thought  which 
thinks  the  genus  as  the  major  term  in  the  Syllogism  of  Being  and  there- 
fore stands  itself  as  the  major  term  of  the  Syllogism  of  Knowing,  need 
cause  no  confusion  whatever,  though  it  is  a  special  application  of  a  term 
with  myriad  meanings.  It  only  requires  to  be  mentioned  that,  just  as 
every  unit-universal  of  Being  is  at  once  a  universal  to  its  own  units  and  a 
unit  to  its  own  higher  universal,  so  every  unit-universal  of  Knowing  is  at 
once  an  idea  to  its  own  included  percept-concepts  and  a  percept-concept 
to  its  own  higher  idea.  In  every  syllogism  of  knowing,  the  idea  is  the 
major,  the  concept  is  the  middle,  and  the  percept  is  the  minor  term  ;  and 
in  a  series  or  sorites  of  dependent  syllogisms  the  conclusion  of  one  be- 
comes the  major  premise  of  the  next. 


true  concepts,  and  true  ideas ;  if  these  are  not  true,  they 
are  elements  of  error  or  mistake  —  not  of  intelligence  at 
all,  but  of  the  want  of  it.  This  unconditional  necessity 
of  agreement,  not  in  sensuous  content,  but  in  relational 
constitution,  between  specimens,  species,  and  genera  in 
Being,  on  the  one  hand,  and  percepts,  concepts,  and  ideas 
of  them  in  Knowing,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  Apriori  of 
Truth,  which  is  the  Apriori  of  Being  in  its  epistemological 
application. 

But  percepts,  concepts,  and  ideas  possess  a  double  char- 
acter in  themselves.  As  existing  realities  in  the  subject, 
they  are  themselves  unit-universals  of  Being,  or  original 
specimens,  species,  and  genera  of  Being  as  Thinking ;  but, 
as  simple  idealities  or  cognitions  of  their  objects,  they  are 
the  primary  unit-universals  of  Knowing  as  Knowing.  Fur- 
ther, just  as  every  real  specimen  or  unit  of  existence  is  a 
concreted  syllogism  as  identity  in  difference  of  generic, 
specific,  and  reific  essence,  so  every  specimen  of  knowl- 
edge or  real  cognition  is  a  concreted  syllogism  as  identity 
in  difference  of  perceptual,  conceptual,  and  ideal  essence. 
For  percepts,  concepts,  and  ideas  are  the  minor,  middle, 
and  major  terms  in  every  Syllogism  of  Knowing;  their 
necessary  interrelatedness  or  unitary  relational  constitution 
is  involved  or  potential  in  the  premises,  but  evolved  or  real 
in  the  conclusion ;  and  every  logical  conclusion  from  true 
premises,  that  is,  every  concreted  syllogism  of  knowledge, 
every  true  judgment  or  real  cognition,  is  one  of  the  ulti- 
mate cells  which  Syllogistic,  as  the  cell-theory  of  the 
organism  of  universal  human  knowledge,  recognizes  as 
the   indivisible   living  components  of  all  science  and  all 

philosophy. 

The  object,  we  repeat,  determines  the  subject  in  Knowing. 
That  is,  what  the  object  is  in  itself,  even  on  the  idealist's 
assumption  that  the  subject  has  created  it,  must  determine 
all  possible  knowledge  of  it;  the  relations  immanent  in  it 
must  determine  all  relations  immanent  in  the  cognition  of 
it,  since  any  variation  in  these  at  once  vitiates  the  cognition 


248 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


SO  far.  This  simply  "cannot  be  otherwise;"  and,  when 
idealism  makes  the  knowing  process  itself  create  the  "  mere 
phaenomeuon,"  that  is,  condition  and  determine  the  objoct 
known,  it  puts  the  cart  before  the  horse  and  fulls  into  hope- 
less self-confusion.  In  other  words,  Being  necessarily 
determines  Knowledge.  Hence  the  Trichotomy  of  Being 
as  Things,  Relations,  and  Conditions  determines  the  Tri- 
chotomy of  Perception,  as  distinguishably  but  inseparably 

(1)  sensuous^  or  apprehensive  of  things  through  the  senses ; 

(2)  intellectual^  or  apprehensive  of  relations  through  the 
understanding ;  and  (3)  rational^  or  apprehensive  of  con- 
ditions through  the  reason.  All  perception,  intuition, 
immediacy,  simple  apprehension,  or  immediate  experience 
of  whatever  name,  is  essentially  determined  and  character- 
ized by  the  character  of  its  object  as  a  specimen  or  unit, 
—  unitary  thing  as  an  object  of  immediate  sense-percc^v 
tion,  unitary  relation  as  an  object  of  immediate  under- 
standing, or  unitary  condition  as  an  object  of  immediate 
reason.  But  all  comprehension  is  essentially  determined 
and  characterized  by  the  character  of  its  object  as  a 
species,  genus,  or  universal  of  units,  whether  these  are 
things,  relations,  or  conditions.  Moreover,  because  every 
possible  object  of  knowledge  is  a  unit-universal  of  reific, 
specific,  and  generic  essence,  every  real  cognition  of  a 
real  object  must  be  determined  by  the  object  itself  to  be 
a  unit-universal  of  perceptual,  conceptual,  and  ideal  essence. 
Apprehension  and  comprehension,  that  is,  experience  and 
reason,  reciprocally  condition  each  other  in  every  real 
cognition,  and  may  be  distinguished,  but  not  separated, 
in  each  of  the  elements  of  a  concrete  syllogism  of  Know- 
ing, because  unity  and  universality  may  be  distinguished, 
but  not  separated,  in  each  element  of  the  real  object  as  a 
concrete  syllogism  of  Being. 

It  will  not  fail  to  be  observed  that,  in  this  Trichotomy 
of  Perception  as  sensuous,  intellectual,  and  rational,  and 
in  the  determination  of  it  by  the  Trichotomy  of  Beingj  as 
things,  relations,  and  conditions,  immediate  exj)erie7ice  as 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


249 


such  becomes  simple  apprehension  of  units  as  units,  whether 
single  things  or  single  relations  or  single  conditions.  This 
is  a  great  expansion  of  the  notion  of  experience.  The  usual 
and  time-honored  view  is  that  experience  includes  only 
sense-perceptions ;  it  measures  everything  by  the  mere  func- 
tions of  the  subject,  refers  experience  to  the  senses  alone, 
does  not  even  inquire  as  to  the  nature  of  the  object,  and 
doubts,  if  it  does  not  deny,  that  there  is  any  object  at  all 
other  than  the  phaenomenal  product  of  the  subject  itself. 
On  the  one  hand  there  have  been  denials,  and  on  the 
other  hand  abuses,  of  intellectual  perception,  intellectual 
intuition,  perceptive  understanding,  and  so  forth,  in  the 
subjectivist  school;  but  no  subjectivist  seeks  in  the  nature 
of  the  object  for  the  ground  of  primary  distinctions  in  the 
knowledge-faculty.  The  objectivist,  however,  will  seek 
for  it  nowhere  else,  and  he  will  find  it  in  the  Apriori  of 
Being,  by  which  nothing  exists  or  can  exist  save  as  a  unit- 
universal,  a  unit  in  its  kind  and  a  universal  in  itself. 
This  ontological  difference  of  unit  and  universal  grounds 
the  epistemological  difference  between  experience,  or  sim- 
ple apprehension  of  units,  and  reason,  or  comprehension 
of  universals  j  it  is  Kant's  "unknown  root"  of  the  ultimate 
unity  of  the  understanding  and  tlie  sensibility,  which  to 
subjectivism  must  always  remain  unknown,  but  to  objec- 
tivism is  self-evident.  From  the  standpoint  of  absolute 
logic,  then,  experience  is  simple,  immediate,  or  unmediated 
perception  of  the  unit  as  unit,  whether  this  unit  be  an  objec- 
tive thing,  an  objective  relation,  an  objective  condition,  or 
any  single  subjective  fact  of  consciousness  whatsoever. 

But  experience  is  sensation  as  well  as  perception  —  it  is 
the  identity  in  difference  of  both.  Sensation  is  the  purely 
subjective  side  of  experience,  and  perception  is  its  purely 
objective  side;  but  neither  side  can  actually  exist  in  perfect 
purity,  that  is,  without  the  other.  These  two  elements  of 
experience,  however,  are  found  in  it  in  unequal  proportions, 
and  Sir  William  Hamilton's  law  is  doubtless  correct,  that 
sensation  and   perception  are  in  the  inverse  ratio  — the 


3i 


250 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


«1 

f 


) 


more  sensation,  the  less  perception,  and  the  more  percep- 
tion, the  less  sensation ;  yet  there  is  no  sensation  unless  it 
is  perceived  and  no  perception  unless  it  is  felt.  Both  ele- 
ments are  equally  primal ;  neither  of  them  is  a  product  or 
derivative  of  the  other.  Sensation  both  begins  and  ends 
in  the  subject ;  but  perception,  while  it  ends  in  the  subject, 
begins  in  the  object  —  that  is,  begins  in  the  object's  deter- 
minative influence  over  the  form  or  relational  content  of 
empirical  cognition.  On  no  other  terms  than  these  is  objec- 
tive knowledge  possible,  whether  as  knowledge  by  a  subject 
of  an  object  other  than  itself  (the  It  or  Not-I)  or  knowl- 
edge by  one  subject  of  another  subject  as  its  own  object 
(the  Other-I).  If  these  terms  are  denied,  absolute  solipsism 
is  the  only  logical  alternative  —  the  Not-I,  the  Other-I,  and 
the  I  itself  as  One  of  the  We,  become  alike  logically  im- 
possible. Hence  even  self-consciousness  of  the  I  as  One  of 
the  We,  without  which  the  I  necessarily  lapses  into  Kant's 
"  unknown  a*,'*  presupposes  perception  as  originating  in  the 
relationally  determinative  influence  of  the  object  perceived 
on  the  perceiving  subject.  Aristotle  holds  no  other  opinion 
of  perception  or  alo-Orja-L^i.^ 

We  conclude,  therefore,  that  immediate  experience  on  its 
subjective  side  is  identity  in  difference  of  sensation  and 
perception,  but  on  its  objective  side  perception  of  units  as 
units,  that  is,  sensuous  perception  of  single  things,  intel- 
lectual perception  of  single  relations,  and  rational  percep- 
tion of  single  conditions.  Because  the  object  necessarily 
determines  the  subject  in  all  knowing,  the  Trichotomy  of 
Being  necessarily  determines  the  Trichotomy  of  Perception, 

*  ov  yap  6  \l0oi  €v  rrj  ^i'x5»  o.\\a  t6  elSoi  -  ioare  i}  ^ux^  uxrirep  ij  x^^P 
i(TTiv  ■  Kal  yap  i}  x^'-P  ^p^dvov  iffTLV  dpydvcov^  Kal  6  vovs  elSoi  cldujv  Kal  ij 
atadtjai^  elSos  alffdrjTiov.  (Aristotle,  Psychology,  Book  III.  Chapter  8,  §  2.) 
—  atriov  8'  &rt  rdv  KaO*  ^Kaffrov  17  /cot'  ivipyeiav  atcBriffi^,  ij  8*  iiriaTi^firj 
Tuv  Ka06\ov  •  ravra  8'  iv  aiWrj  ircis  effri  rj)  \pvxv  .  .  .  tA  alffBrfrh  rwv  KaB* 
^KaffTa  Kal  rdv  ^^uBev.  (Ibid.  H.  Chap.  .5,  §  6.)  What  Aristotle  does  not 
cleariy  perceive  is  the  necessary  objectivity  of  relations.  Tliese  are  "  some- 
how in  the  soul,"  yet  also  "somehow  out  of  the  soul,"  and  their  agree- 
ment is  truth. 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM  251 

§  245.  The  fundamental  laws  of  epistemology,  or  abso- 
lute syllogistic  as  operative  in  Knowing,  may  be  expressed 
somewhat  as  follows :  — 

I.  Ideas  evolve  concepts,  and  concepts  evolve  percepts ; 
therefore,  ideas  evolve  percepts.  This  does  not  mean  that 
ideas  evolve  sensations;  for,  as  just  explained,  sensation 
and  perception  are  equally  primal  elements  in  immediate 
experience.  But  it  means  that  every  new  cognition,  as 
conclusion  in  a  new  syllogism  of  knowing,  and  therefore 
as  identity  in  difference  of  logically  prior  premises,  derives 
its  cognitive  form  from  the  subject  and  its  intelligible  con- 
tent or  relational  constitution  from  the  object  — that  is, 
inherits  its  ideal  and  conceptual  essence  from  already 
gained  concepts  and  ideas,  but  acquires  its  perceptual  es- 
sence, its  individual  difference  as  this  particular  percept  ioUf 
through  adaptation  to  the  determining  environment  as  this 
particular  object  perceived.  For  instance,  I  have  a  sudden 
visual  sensation  as  I  look  out  of  my  window,  and  gradually 
but  rapidly  perceive  in  the  distance  (1)  a  something,  (2)  a 
moving  something,  (3)  a  moving  quadruped,  (4)  a  running 
dog.  My  mere  sensation  tells  me  nothing  beyond  myself, 
but  my  immediate  experience  contains  also  a  threefold  per- 
ception of  something  related  to  something  else  in  space 
and  time,  in  this  case  perception  of  a  dog  moving  in  the 
landscape,  just  as  soon  as  my  previously  formed  concepts 
enable  me  to  discover  or  determine  in  my  own  conscious- 
ness the  real  "  what "  of  the  object.  Until  that  is  deter- 
mined, I  have  not  perceived  the  dog.  For  I  perceive  an 
object  so  far  only  as  I  can  perceive  and  think  its  "  what," 
and  "what  I  see"  must  always  depend  upon  "what  I 
know  "  —  a  rule  which  explains  why  a  botanist  and  a  poet 
never  see  precisely  the  same  flower.  In  other  words,  ideas 
evolve  the  fomi  of  new  percepts  as  percept -concepts,  con- 
crete syllogisms,  or  cognitions,  while  the  co-operant  outer 
world  evolves  their  content  by  determining  their  relational 
constitution  in  agreement  with  that  of  outer  objects,  so  far 
as  this  is  perceived :  the  iVhat  in  Being^  or  immanent  rela- 


252 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


P 


tional  constitution  of  the  object,  must  be  itself  the  What 
in  Knowing,  or  immanent  relational  constitution  of  the 
cognition  of  the  object  (cv  roi^rots  17  io-ott^s  cvdr*;?).     This  is 
the  evolution  of  real  cognition  as  identity  in  difference  of 
heredity  and  adaptation,  —  that  is,  the  "  origin  of  knowl- 
edge "  as  determination  of  Knowing  by  Being  in  Learning. 
II.   Ideas  involve  concepts,   and  concepts  involve  per- 
cepts ;  therefore,  ideas  involve  percepts.    The  only  adequate 
concept  would  be  cognition  of  the  species  in  and  with  all 
its  specimens,  including  and  not  excluding  all  their  indi- 
vidual differences  or  peculiarities;  that  alone  is  the  real 
species  in  Being,  and  that  alone  would  be  real  cognition  of 
it  in  adequate  Knowing.     But  the  quantity  of  perceptive 
and  conceptive  energy  in  us  is  insufficient  to  form  an  ade- 
quate concept  of  any  species;  every  human  concept  must 
be  concrete  as  identity  in   difference  of  experience  and 
reason,  but  also  imperfect  or  abstract  as  failing  in  adequacy 
to  its  object  as  real  species  (see  §  G5).      Hence  we  are 
obliged  to  employ  so-called  "abstractions,"  that  is,  imper- 
fect concrete  concepts,  in  all  our  thinking.    But  abstrac- 
tion   is    always    incomplete,  and    no    abstraction    can  be 
independent  of  that  from  which  it  is  abstracted ;  absolute 
abstraction  of  species  from  specimens  or  of  concepts  from 
percepts  would  reduce  them  to  "  pure  universals  "  or  "  blank 
forms "  or  absolute  zero,  since  units  and  universals  con- 
dition each  the  possibility  of  the  other.     It  is  never  possi- 
ble to  abstract  the  real  common  essence  of  any  species  so 
completely  in  a  concept  of  it  as  wholly  to  exclude  all  the 
real  individual  differences  of  all  its  specimens,  and  this  im- 
possibility lies  at  the  bottom  of  the  old  difficulty  of  "  gene- 
ral terms,"  as  pressed  so  vigorously  by  Berkeley  and  the 
other  conceptualists.     Image    and  notion  condition  each 
other  in  thought  as  rigorously  as  sides  and  angles  in  a 
triangle.     Hence  every  concept  necessarily  involves  per- 
cepts, and  every  idea  necessarily  involves  concepts :  both 
concepts  and  ideas,  in  whatever  degree  of  abstraction  from 
immediate  experience,   rest  ultimately  on  percepts,  and 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


253 


\ 


vanish  into  sheer  nothingness  when  their  involved  percepts 
are  absolutely  suppressed.  Herein  lies  the  unreality  of 
"pure  thought,"  "pure  reason,"  "pure  knowledge  a 
priori,^  and  so  forth,  in  every  attempt  to  establish  which 
the  least  analytic  skill  detects  the  elements  drawn  from  the 
ostensibly  excluded  "experience."  This  necessary  in- 
volution of  percepts  in  all  ideas  is  the  impossibility  of  the 
separation  of  experience  and  reason  —  impossibility,  there- 
fore, of  the  Kantian  epistemology  and  the  Hegelian  pan- 
logism  as  reines  Denken. 

III.  Ideas  involve  and  evolve  concepts,  and  concepts  in- 
volve and  evolve  percepts;  therefore,  ideas  involve  and 
evolve  percepts.  This,  stated  in  the  most  general  terms,  is 
the  manner  in  which  knowledge  is  acquired,  the  identity  in 
difference  of  evolution  and  involution  as  knowing,  the 
productive  continuity  of  the  intellectual  life,  the  organic 
use  of  mind,  the  learning  process,  the  scientific  method. 
There  is  a  complete  and  entire  analogy  between  the  growth 
of  a  living  specimen  or  species  in  nature  and  the  growth  of 
human  knowledge  as  a  whole,  whether  in  the  individual 
mind  or  in  the  race  as  such.  The  scientific  method,  begun 
in  common  experience,  developed  in  science,  and  perfected 
in  philosophy,  involves  the  immanent  relational  constitu- 
tion of  universal  human  knowledge  as  a  self-developing 
system  or  real  organism,  whose  germ  is  the  realized  identity 
in  difference  of  experience  and  reason  in  the  concrete  syllo- 
gism, real  cognition,  or  particular  percept-concept  of  the 
particular  unit-universal,  —  whose  matter  is  the  innume- 
rable percept-concepts  thence  resulting,  —  whose  life  is  the 
universal  syllogistic  process  or  scientific  method  itself,  — 
whose  form  is  the  system  of  organic  philosophy,  —  whose 
immanent  end  is  the  perfection  of  human  knowledge,  and 
whose  exient  end  is  the  perfection  of  human  life.  Nothing 
but  this  conception  of  the  organic  development  of  our 
knowledge  as  the  living  process  of  a  living  form  can  ex- 
plain the  frequent  simultaneity  of  discoveries  of  the  same 
thing  by  diverse  discoverers,  in  satisfaction  of  the  organ- 


254 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PmLOSOPHY 


I 


U 


i 


ism's  needs  at  a  given  period:  they  come  because  they 
were  involved  already  in  past  discoveries  as  potential  per- 
cepts in  realized  ideas,  and  now  are  evolved  syllogistically 
as  new  realized  percepts.  For  the  scientific  method  of 
observation,  hypothesis,  and  verification  is  itself  an  induc- 
tive syllogism.  Observation  is  accurate  determination  in 
the  observer's  mind  of  the  particular  relations  of  facts  as 
they  exist  in  themselves  (minor  premise)  ;  hypothesis  is  his 
surmise  of  their  universal  relations,  not  as  yet  observed,  but, 
as  he  reasons,  logically  implied  or  potential  in  the  given 
facts  (major  premise) ;  and  verification  is  confirmation  of 
this  surmise  of  new  universals  through  experiments  so  de- 
vised as  to  realize  this  logical  potentiality  in  new  facts 
newly  observed  (conclusion).  This  is  induction,  or  verifi- 
cation of  an  uncertain  major  premise  as  the  probable  con- 
dition of  a  certain  minor  premise  and  a  certain  conclusion ; 
and  the  possibility  of  induction  as  a  valid  process  proves 
that  the  Syllogism  of  Knowing  is  grounded  in  the  Syllogism 
of  Being.  For  the  principle  of  both  induction  and  de- 
duction is  the  same,  that  is,  whatever  is  evolved  as  conse- 
quent must  be  involved  as  antecedent :  deduction  infers  a 
necessary  conclusion  from  given  premises,  while  induction 
infers  a  probable  major  premise  from  a  given  minor  premise 
and  a  given  conclusion.  The  latter  is  verification — that 
is,  satisfactory  proof  of  the  hypothesis,  surmised  before- 
hand by  the  scientific  reason  and  imagination  to  be  in- 
volved in  the  facts  observed,  and  found  afterwards  by  the 
"appeal  to  Nature"  to  be  evolved  in  the  new  facts  as  de- 
termined by  experiment.  The  scientific  method  is  a 
working  union  of  deduction  and  induction,  and  both  of 
these  are  syllogisms  of  differing  form  and  value  —  evolu- 
tions of  percepts  out  of  ideas  and  involutions  of  percepts  in 
ideas.  Science  itself  is  syllogistic  equation  of  immanent 
relational  constitutions  involved  and  understood  in  the 
unit-universals  of  existence,  as  antecedent,  with  that  which 
is  evolved  and  inferred  in  the  percept-concepts  of  human 
intelligence,  as  consequent:  reason  thinks  these  constitu- 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


255 


I 


tions  in  the  premises,  and  energy  makes  them  in  the  con- 
clusions. So  comprehended,  it  is  frivolous  to  consider  the 
syllogism  a  mere  petitio  principiiy  for  syllogizing  is  that 
change  of  potentiality  (Sui/aftct)  into  reality  (ci/cpycta)  which 
is  the  life  of  the  world  as  endless  subsumption  of  units 
under  universals  in  new  units. 

IV.  Every  real  cognition  must  be  identity  in  difference 
of  percept,  concept,  and  idea;  it  is  related  in  itself  as 
specimen,  species,  and  genus,  that  is,  as  a  concrete  syllo- 
gism. Analysis  of  intelligence  as  the  cognitive  faculty 
in  general  (Erkenntnissvermogeii)  justifies  distinction  of 
it  into  three  elementary  but  inseparable  functions  as  per- 
ceptivity, understanding,  and  reason.  We  say  perceptivity 
rather  than  sensibility,  because  immediate  experience,  as 
has  been  already  shown,  contains  both  sensation  and  per- 
ception as  its  ultimate  factors,  the  former  on  its  subjective 
or  sensitive  side  and  the  latter  on  its  objective  or  cognitive 
side,  and  because  epistemology  deals  directly  with  the  lat- 
ter alone  —  the  former  belonging  to  psychology  as  one  of 
the  many  sciences  included  under  epistemology.  The  great 
fundamental  principle  of  the  necessary  objectivity  of  rela- 
tions, which  distinguishes  the  objectivism  of  science  from  the 
subjectivism  of  the  philosophy  prevalent  since  Descartes, 
involves  a  vast  enlargement  of  the  notion  of  experience. 
Relations  must  cease  to  be  regarded  as  exclusively  the 
work  of  "  pure  synthesis  a  priori "  or  product  of  the  pure 
"  consciousness  in  general,"  and  take  their  proper  place  as 
the  intelligible  Ansich,  the  immanent  necessity,  unity,  and 
universality  of  the  "  thing  in  itself  "  or  only  possible  object 
of  knowledge.  Hence  the  perceptivity  or  cognitive  prin- 
ciple of  immediate  experience  must  be  correlated  with  this 
Ansich  of  the  object  in  general,  namely,  the  identity  in 
difference  of  things,  relations,  and  conditions  (Trichotomy 
of  Being),  and  be  itself  understood  as  the  identity  in  differ- 
ence of  sensuous,  intellectual,  and  rational  intuition  (Trichot- 
omy of  Perception).  From  this  it  follows  that  the  notion 
of  experience  on  its  perceptive  side  must  be  expanded  by 


256 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


recognition  of  three  mutually  irreducible  orders  of  real 
percepts:  sensuous  percepts  of  single  things  or  related 
terms,  intellectual  percepts  of  single  relations  of  single 
things,  and  rational  percepts  of  single  conditions  of  all  re- 
lated things.  For  no  unit  can  be  known  as  a  unit  unless  it 
is  perceived,  and  no  unit-universal  of  existence,  whether  as 
genus,  species,  or  specimen,  can  be  known  as  such,  unless 
it  is  known  in  its  unity  as  well  as  in  its  universality  — 
that  is,  unless  it  is  apprehended  sensuously,  intellectually, 
and  rationally  in  one  indivisible  percept,  as  well  as  com- 
prehended rationally  in  one  indivisible  concept  and  one 
indivisible  idea.  Consequently,  the  syllogistic  functional 
constitution  of  intelligence  itself  as  perceptivity,  conceptiv- 
ity  (or  understanding),  and  ideality  (or  reason),  necessitates 
the  syllogistic  constitution  of  every  product  of  intelligence 
as  identity  in  difference  of  percept,  concept,  and  idea,  that 
is,  as  a  concrete  syllogism  of  knowing,  a  real  cognition. 

V.  The  perceptivity  is  identity  in  difference  of  sensuous, 
intellectual,  and  rational  intuition,  that  is,  immediate  ap- 
prehension of  units  of  whatever  kind  as  "somethings ; "  the 
understanding  is  identity  in  difference  of  perceptive,  con- 
ceptive,  and  abstractive  intellection  of  "  relations ; "  the 
reason  is  identity  in  difference  of  perceptive,  logical,  and 
ethical  comprehension  of  "conditions"  and  the  uncon- 
ditioned. These  distinctions  inevitably  overlap  to  some 
extent ;  the  intellectual  perceptivity  is  identical  with  the 
perceptive  understanding,  and  the  rational  perceptivity 
with  the  perceptive  reason.  But  they  are,  nevertheless, 
indispensable,  because  they  are  grounded  in  those  onto- 
logical  differences  which  determine  all  valid  epistemo- 
logical  distinctions.  Just  as  absolute  necessity,  or  the 
Apriori  of  Being,  underlies  logical  necessity,  or  the  Apriori 
of  Thought,  in  the  "must"  or  "cannot  be  otherwise"  of 
the  relation  of  equation  between  antecedent  and  consequent 
in  every  valid  syllogism,  and  thereby  stands  as  the  last 
appeal  of  Reason  :  just  so  change  of  objective  relations,  or 
the  Aposteriori  of  Being,  underlies  change  of  subjective 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


257 


relations,  or  the  Aposteriori  of  Thought,  in  the  "may  he 
otherwise  "  of  the  objective  relations  perceived,  and  there- 
by renders  immediate  perception  itself,  as  sole  reflector  of 
changing  facts,  the  last  appeal  of  Experience.  For  instance, 
reason  decides  from  what  we  have  learned  of  the  solar 
system  that  the  sun  must  rise  and  set  every  day;  but 
whether  it  is  rising  or  setting  now,  on  this  particular  day, 
can  be  decided  by  perception  alone.  But,  just  as  things 
without  relations,  and  relations  without  things,  and  either 
things  or  relations  without  conditions,  are  alike  impossible 
in  Being,  so  for  that  very  reason  are  apprehension  of 
things,  intellection  of  relations,  and  comprehension  of 
conditions,  impossible  in  Knowing  except  as  combined  in- 
dissolubly  in  one  realized  cognition.  For  to  apprehend  "  a 
thing,"  or  to  understand  "  a  relation,"  or  to  comprehend  "  a 
condition,"  necessarily  involves  and  connotes  the  universals 
in  which  these  are  units.  Since  the  knowledge  of  relatives 
is  only  one  knowledge,  it  follows  that  specimen  and  spe- 
cies on  the  one  hand,  and  percept  of  the  specimen  and 
concept  of  the  species,  on  the  other  hand,  being  related 
necessarily  by  the  Apriori  of  Being,  are  for  that  reason  re- 
lated necessarily  by  the  Apriori  of  Thought,  and  knowable 
only  with  and  through  each  other. 

It  is  this  ultimate  necessity  which  determines  the  func- 
tion of  the  understanding  to  be  at  once  perceptive  of  single 
or  unitary  relations  and  conceptive  of  specific  and  generic, 
that  is,  of  universal  relations,  —  cognitive  at  once  of  the 
'*  this  "  and  the  "  what "  in  "  this  somewhat "  (  Toh^  n,  hoc 
aliqutd  ununi  numero),  and  therefore  productive  at  once  of 
individualization  and  of  generalization  in  every  real  cogni- 
tion of  it.  But,  while  every  concept  and  every  idea  of  the 
human  intelligence  must  thus  include  both  empirical  and 
rational  elements  (reines  Denken  would  be  kein  Denken),  no 
such  concept  or  idea  can  ever  be  adequate  to  its  real  object, 
which  can  be  adequately  known  by  the  Absolute  I  alone 
(§  Q^),  Hence  all  our  cognitions  are  necessarily  abstrac- 
tions, partly  by  reason  of  this  necessary  inadequacy  and 

VOL.  II.  — 17 


258 


THE   SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


partly  by  reason  of  the  voluntary  concentration  of  our 
attention  on  the  likenesses  of  things  in  our  inability  to  ' 
grasp  all  their  differences;  although  in  another  sense  they 
are  necessarily  concretions,  since,  as  just  remarked,  every 
real  cognition  must  contain  both  empirical  and  rational  ele- 
ments, and  therefore  be  concrete  as  union  of  experience 
and  reason.  This  necessarily  abstract  and  imperfect 
nature  of  all  our  cognitions  defeats  the  overweening  claim 
of  philosophy  to  be  absolutes  Wissen;  yet  without  the 
abstractive  function  of  our  understanding  no  human  knowl- 
edge at  all  would  be  possible.  Notwithstanding  our 
unavoidable  derivation  of  merely  abstract,  partial,  and 
artificial  universals  from  the  real  universals  of  existence, 
they  are  true  as  far  as  they  go:  demonstration  remains 
demonstration,  and  verification  remains  verification,  and 
"  knowledge  grows  from  more  to  more."  We  know  because 
we  generalize  and  abstract,  but  for  the  same  reason  we 
know  only  in  part,  and  our  knowledge  itself,  as  identity 
in  difference  of  experience  and  reason,  must  take  the 
form  of  the  concrete  syllogism  because  this  is  the  form  of 
the  total  object  known :  namely,  the  world-process  in  the 
world-history  as  evolution  through  involution,  self-evolu- 
tion of  Nature  in  Spirit  as  the  Many  in  the  One  and  self- 
involution  of  Spirit  in  Nature  as  the  One  in  the  Many,  the 
eternal  Syllogism  of  Being. 

VI.  Sense-perception  and  the  perceptive  understanding, 
dealing  inseparably  with  the  actual  unit-universals  of  exist- 
ence as  the  Aposteriori  of  Being,  reproduce  in  human  con- 
sciousness that  which  is  as  that  tvhich  is  known  ;  but  the 
perceptive  reason,  dealing  with  the  absolute  conditions  of 
all  unit-universals  as  the  Apriori  of -Being,  reproduces  in 
us  that  ivhich  cannot  he  otherwise  as  that  which  cannot  be 
known  otherwise  —  whereby  the  Apriori  of  Being  becomes 
itself  known  as  determining  the  Apriori  of  Thought.  That 
is,  the  first  two  functions  of  the  perceptivity  bring  to  pass 
cognition  of  the  simply  real,  while  the  third  brings  to  pass 
cognition  of  the  necessary,  the  unconditioned,  the  condi- 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


259 


tions  of  the  real  which  themselves  have  no  condition. 
These  conditions,  already  named  as  Space,  Time,  Substance, 
Essence,  Process,  are  neither  things  nor  relations  of  things, 
and  therefore  objects  neither  of  the  sensuous  nor  of  the 
intellectual  perceptivity.  Yet,  since  nothing  can  be  known 
which  is  unperceived,  they  must  be  perceived  immediately 
by  the  reason  in  a  perceptive  capacity  which  is  adapted  to 
the  object  itself,  and  as  different  from  perception  of  things 
and  perception  of  relations  as  things  and  relations  are 
themselves  different  from  their  own  a  priori  conditions. 
To  go  further  into  this  recondite  inquiry,  profoundly  im- 
portant as  it  is,  would  be  out  of  place  in  this  connection ; 
it  must  suffice  to  state  the  conclusion  that  the  universal 
and  absolute  conditions  of  existence  must  be  perceived  by 
reason  immediately,  or  else  they  cannot  be  known  at  all, 
since  any  attempt  to  prove  them  presupposes  the  syllogism, 
which  itself  presupposes  these  very  conditions.  Reason 
must  directly  perceive  the  necessary  to  be  necessary,  that 
is,  perceive  the  "  cannot  be  otherwise  "  without  syllogistic 
proof,  or  else  necessity  and  strict  universality  have  no 
standing  in  human  knowledge.     But  this  is  absurd. 

VII.  In  its  logical  function,  therefore,  reason  is  imme- 
diate perception  of  the  syllogistic  must  —  immediate  per- 
ception that  whatever  is  evolved  as  consequent  must  be 
involved  as  antecedent,  and  that  this  "cannot  be  otherwise." 
This  rational  perception  conditions  all  inference  in  the 
syllogism,  and  in  itself  constitutes  the  whole  "force  of 
demonstration"  —  to  confound  which  with  "compulsion," 
**  coercion,"  "coerciveness,"  or  any  other  use  of  the  will  as 
such,  would  betray  a  natural  inaptitude  for  philosophy. 
That  the  bisectors  of  the  three  angles  of  any  plane  triangle 
must  all  intersect  at  one  point  is  necessary,  and  seen  to  be 
necessary  just  as  soon  as  the  demonstration  is  compre- 
hended; and  this  relational  necessity,  determined  by  the 
Apriori  of  Being,  cannot  be  either  created  or  destroyed,  or 
altered,  or  weakened  in  any  degree  by  any  will,  whether 
finite  or  infinite.     "  To  feel  the  force  of  demonstration  "  is 


260 


TUE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


only  a  bad  description  of  the  fact  that  the  reasoning  sub- 
ject immediately  j^ereeives  and  feelsy  that  is,  experienceSy  the 
absolute  necessity  of  it,  coupled  with  the  other  fact  that 
reason  itself  is  a  very  feeble  faculty  in  most  human  minds. 
The  absolute  necessity  itself  is  a  fact  in  Being,  and  inheres 
as  the  "  cannot  be  otherwise "  in  the  relation  of  every 
condition  to  its  conditioned,  whatever  these  may  be :  this 
relation  itself  is  objectively  real,  product  of  no  subject's 
"  spontaneity,"  absolute,  unconditioned,  and  it  is  the  essen- 
tial mark  of  the  reason,  or  "  faculty  of  the  unconditioned," 
to  experience  it  as  a  fact,  not  mediately  by  inference,  but 
immediately  by  intuition.  If  the  reason  as  such  did  not 
immediately  perceive  that  the  antecedent  and  consequent 
of  every  syllogism  stand  in  this  objectively  real  and 
absolutely  necessary  relation  of  condition  and  conditioned, 
reasoning  itself  would  be  impossible;  there  would  be  no 
linkage  or  coherence  in  the  elements  of  the  syllogism; 
nothing  could  ever  be  inferred.  Further,  the  mark  of  a 
rational  truth  in  distinction  from  an  empirical  truth,  even 
in  the  common  understanding  of  the  distinction,  is  the 
necessity  and  strict  universality  of  the  relation  which  is 
the  content  of  that  truth.  But  the  necessity  of  a  relation 
cannot  be  itself  a  relation;  it  can  only  be  the  intrinsic 
quality  of  a  relation  which  "cannot  be  otherwise,"  just  as 
variableness  is  the  mark  or  intrinsic  quality  of  a  relation 
which  "may  be  otherwise."  Now  this  necessity  or  non- 
necessity of  a  relation  as  such  can  be  discerned  neither  by 
sense-perception  nor  by  the  merely  perceptive  understand- 
ing: the  former  perceives  terms  or  units,  and  the  latter 
perceives  the  relations  of  these  terms  as  they  are,  but 
neither  of  the  two  perceives  that  these  relations  can  or 
cannot  be  otherwise  than  they  are.  Hence  the  intelligence 
which  perceives  this  must  be  a  mode  of  perception  differ- 
ent from  either  of  the  two  functions  noted:  it  must  be 
rational  perception.  That  is,  the  logical  reason  which  per- 
ceives necessity  in  the  syllogism  is  both  apprehension  and 
comprehension  of  the  Apriori  of  Being,  without  which  there 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


261 


could  be  neither  apprehension  nor  comprehension  of  the 
Apriori  of  Thought. 

VIII.  In  its  ethical  or  teleological  function,  reason  still 
remains  the  "  faculty  of  the  unconditioned  "  —  the  faculty 
which  not  only  perceives  logical  necessity  as  the  syllogistic 
mtisty  but  also  perceives  ethical  necessity  as  the  syllogis- 
tic ought.  For  every  duty  or  moral  obligation  is  the  syllo- 
gistically  necessary  subsumption  of  a  particular  act  under 
a  universal  law,  which  derives  its  authority,  not  from  the 
fiat  of  a  sovereign  will,  not  from  the  "categorical  impera- 
tive "  of  a  self-determining  subject,  whether  individual  or 
collective,  and  whether  finite  or  infinite,  but  solely  from 
the  Apriori  of  Moral  Being,  that  is,  from  the  Apriori  of 
Right,  the  "  cannot  be  otherwise  "  of  the  Good.  The  ethi- 
cal reason  is  immediate  perception  of  the  syllogistic  ought, 
as  the  intrinsic  necessity  or  essential  quality  of  the  relation 
which  exists  between  the  ideal  and  the  deed,  the  ethical 
condition  and  the  ethical  conditioned,  in  every  good  action 
as  such.  The  "  good  will "  cannot  evolve  its  own  goodness 
solely  out  of  itself;  its  goodness  essentially  consists  in 
freely  subsuming  its  own  subjective  activity,  in  general 
and  in  particular,  under  an  objective  moral  law  which  it 
did  not  enact  and  can  never  repeal,  and  which,  therefore, 
derives  its  obligatoriness  or  binding  authority  over  the  will 
solely  from  the  immutable  conditions  of  moral  existence  as 
such,  that  is,  from  the  Apriori  of  Right.  The  "  good  will  " 
is  indeed  "autonomous,"  but  its  autonomy  is  limited  to 
free  choice  between  the  Good  and  the  Bad,  that  is,  the  Not- 
Good,  and  does  not  extend  so  far  as  to  eradicate  or  to 
weaken  the  eternal  difference  between  them.  Hence  it  is 
the  function  of  reason  in  its  capacity  of  ethical  intuition, 
not  to  create,  or  to  originate  out  of  itself  alone,  or  to  legis- 
late on  its  own  authority  alone,  but  to  perceive  immedi- 
ately the  ethical  necessity  of  the  Good  as  the  supreme  End 
of  Being  —  that  is,  as  identity  in  difference  of  Truth, 
Beauty,  and  Right.  For  Truth  is  the  supreme  rational 
good,  Beauty  the  supreme  aesthetic  good,  and  Right  the 


262 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC   PHILOSOPHY 


supreme  active  good ;  and  these  are  the  triple  end  of  Being 
as  the  Absolutely  Good  I,  determined  as  such  not  by  a  mere 
act  of  will,  but  by  the  necessary  nature  of  Being  itself,  as 
relational  equation  of  potentiality  and  actuality,  or  ideality 
and  reality,  in  the  Syllogism  of  Being.  For  this  is  simply 
the  indestructibility  or  necessary  continuity  of  Being  as 
Being,  the  eternity  of  the  All  as  the  All-Person  or  Abso- 
lutely Good  I. 

IX.  But  the  ethical  function  of  reason  does  not  culminate 
with  the  immediate  perception  of  necessity  as  the  syllo- 
gistic ought y  that  is,  of  the  Good  as  the  End  of  Being  or 
major  premise  in  the  Syllogism  of  Doing.  Reason  is  not 
only  perceptive  of  the  ultimate  unconditioned  end  of  the  I 
as  the  Good,  but  also  creative  of  conditioned  and  subordi- 
nate ends  as  Means  to  the  Good,  that  is,  of  purposes  as 
middle  terms  or  final  causes  in  the  Syllogism  of  Doing.  In 
other  words,  reason  is  not  only  the  perceptive  "  faculty  of 
the  unconditioned,"  but  also  the  teleological  faculty  of  moral 
freedom.  The  "  freedom  of  the  will,"  if  by  that  phrase  is 
understood  indeterminism  of  the  will,  is  a  false  issue  in 
ethics;  for  will  as  will  is  an  alogical  or  blindly  executive 
energy  which  is  impotent  to  determine  itself,  and  derives 
its  whole  direction  and  form  from  the  purposes  with  which 
creative  reason  informs  it.  Notwithstanding  Schopenhauer, 
an  alogical  will  can  tend  of  itself  alone  in  no  direction.  Not 
freedom  of  the  will,  but  freedom  of  the  I,  is  what  ethics 
demands  as  the  condition  of  moral  action ;  and  the  freedom 
of  the  I  lies  in  the  creative,  teleological,  or  ethical  reason 
which  informs  the  will,  and  which,  as  free  purpose,  medi- 
ates between  the  ideal  and  the  deed.  Every  decision  or 
choice  of  the  I  is  a  concrete  syllogism  of  Doing,  and  its 
freedom  lies  in  the  ethical  reason  which  (1)  sets  up  an 
ideal  or  end,  necessarily  either  in  concord  or  in  discord 
with  the  Good;  (2)  constructs  or  invents  a  free  purpose  as 
means  to  that  end ;  and  (3)  realizes  that  end  through  that 
means  in  a  new  deed.  This  is  the  ethical  syllogism,  into 
each  term  of  which  both  reason  and  will  enter,  the  former 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


263 


as  determining,  the  latter  as  determined ;  it  is  the  self- 
determination  of  the  I  as  a  free  moral  being,  and  it  is  the 
work  of  the  ethical  reason.  In  this  fact  lies  the  truth  of 
the  old  definition,  "  Man  is  a  rational  animal."  Feeling  is 
indispensable  to  moral  action,  which  without  it  would  lapse 
into  inaction ;  but  wrong  action  at  once  emerges,  when  feel- 
ing refuses  to  subordinate  itself  to  ethical  reason  and  seizes 
the  reins.  In  the  present  state  of  mankind,  in  the  existing 
feebleness  of  reason  as  compared  with  feeling  in  the  aver- 
age man,  the  ethical  syllogism  too  often  becomes  the  ethi- 
cal fallacy,  that  is,  the  wrong  deed;  but  the  progress  of 
man  as  a  "  rational  animal  "  consists  in  a  slow  but  constant 
approximation  towards  the  practical  sovereignty  of  ethical 
reason  over  both  feeling  and  will.  The  worst  evils  of  the 
world  result  from  error,  or  logical  fallacy,  and  wrong,  or 
logico-ethical  fallacy,  through  distortion  of  reason  by  feel- 
ing as  selfishness.* 

§  246.  The  fundamental  truth  of  Ethics  lies  in  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  strictly  logical  Realization  of  the  Ideal.  This 
is  the  principle  that,  while  the  object  determines  the  sub- 
ject in  Knowing  (Idealization  of  the  Real),  the  subject 
determines  the  object  in  Doing,  that  is,  alters  its  form  or 
changes  its  relations,  in  order  to  realize  in  it  some  purpose 
and  ideal  of  its  own,  or  to  make  it  a  means  to  some  remoter 
end.  The  subject  and  the  environment  (including  all  other 
subjects)  stand  in  the  relation  of  action  and  reaction  under 
the  universal  laws  of  energy.  The  action  of  the  environ- 
ment on  the  subject  in  Knowing  is  necessary,  since  the 
object  (if  known  at  all,  and  just  so  far  as  it  is  known)  must 
be  known  as  it  is  in  itself  and  cannot  be  known  as  it  is  not 
in  itself:  the  relations  immanent  in  the  environment  as 
object  must  impress  the  perceptivity  of  the  subject,  or  else 
all  knowledge  of  the  environment  (including  all  other  sub- 

1  "  Der  Entstehungsgnind  alles  Irrthums  wird  daher  einzig  und  alleiu 
in  dem  unvermerkten  Einfiusse  der  Sinnlichkcit  auf  den  Verstami,  oder 
genauer  zu  reden,  auf  das  Uriheil,  gesucht  werden  miissea."  (Kant, 
Logik,  Werke,  VIII.  54.) 


264 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


jects)  is  a  metaphysical  and  logical  impossibility.  The 
reaction  of  the  subject  on  the  environment  in  Doing,  how- 
ever, just  so  far  as  it  is  conscious  (all  Doing  as  such  must 
be  understood  as  conscious  action  or  praxis  in  the  ethical 
sense),  is  free  :  the  relations  immanent  in  the  deed,  which 
makes  some  change  in  the  environment  as  object  and  enters 
into  it  thenceforward  as  a  causal  part  of  it,  must  express  the 
creative,  teleological,  or  ethical  reason  of  the  subject,  be- 
cause they  must  vary  according  to  the  limitless  variety  of 
the  purposes  which  the  reason  freely  creates  and  which  the 
will  blindly  executes. 

As  epistemology  is  thus  the  science  of  necessary  impress 
sion  of  the  subject  by  the  object  in  all  Knowing,  so  ethics 
is  the  science  oifree  expression  of  the  subject  in  the  object 
in  all  Doing :  there  is  no  freedom  in  Knowing  as  Knowing, 
and  there  is  nothing  but  freedom  in  Doing  as  Doing.  Hence 
there  are  neither  "  motives  "  nor  "  motion  "  in  moral  action 
—  no  causes  but  final  causes.  I  am  the  absolute  and  ulti- 
mate originator  of  my  own  purposes ;  if  any  other  power 
in  the  universe  could  make  them  for  me,  they  would  simply 
not  be  mine ;  either  I  create  them  freely  and  absolutely  for 
myself,  or  else  I  have  none  at  all.  Freedom  is  the  absolute 
condition  of  ethics,  and  I  know  it,  not  because  I  am  imme- 
diately and  personally  conscious  of  it  (which  might  con- 
ceivably be  an  illusion),  but  because  without  it  there  could 
be  neither  right  nor  wrong ;  which  would  be  the  reductio  ad 
ahsurdum  of  all  human  consciousness  and  human  history 
and  human  life.  Freedom  lies  in  the  making  of  the  pur- 
pose which  mediates  between  the  ideal  and  the  deed,  for  it 
is  the  free  purpose,  that  is,  the  free  suhjex;t  purposing,  which 
chooses  the  ideal  and  determines  the  deed,  as  good  or  bad 
on  their  subjective  side ;  while  necessity  lies  in  the  work- 
ing of  the  deed  as  a  cause  in  the  environment  and  its  effect 
on  human  society,  as  good  or  bad  on  its  objective  side. 
Hence  a  given  action  is  subjectively  right  or  wrong  accord- 
ing to  the  purpose  or  intention  of  the  actor,  but  objectively 
right  or  wrong  according  to  the  effect  it  works  as  a  cause 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


265 


on  the  welfare  of  others.  The  importance  of  recognizing 
this  double  standard  of  ethical  judgment  is  apparent :  the 
actor  is  right  if  his  purpose  is  right  according  to  his  knowl- 
edge, but  his  action  is  wrong  if  it  militates  in  fact  against 
the  rights  of  others,  as  in  the  case  of  Torquemada  and  the 
Spanish  Inquisition.  For  the  principle  of  freedom  in  all 
moral  action  logically  involves  the  equality  of  all  moral 
actors  with  respect  to  freedom,  that  is,  the  equality  of  all 
men  in  their  fundamental  rights  and  duties.  The  supreme 
precept  of  ethical  wisdom,  therefore,  addressed  equally  to 
nations  and  to  men,  will  be  substantially  as  follows  :  "  Be 
just !  Maintain  your  own  freedom  without  encroaching  on 
the  equal  freedom  of  any  other,  and  devote  it  to  promoting 
justice  as  the  moral  equilibrium  of  the  world."  For  uni- 
versal observance  of  justice  is  the  condition  of  the  world's 
maximum  welfare :  it  is  at  once  the  law  of  self-preserva- 
tion, non-aggression,  and  service,  —  egoism  and  altruism  in 
one;  and  universal  observance  of  it  would  be  universal  hap- 
piness as  the  result,  so  far  as  this  depends  on  human  action. 
No  truer  word  was  ever  said  than  that  of  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson:  "justice  satisfies  everybody,  and  justice  alone." 

Mere  happiness  as  such,  whether  as  "  my  own  happiness," 
"the  happiness  of  the  greatest  number,"  or  the  "  maximum 
happiness  of  all,"  though  it  is  undoubtedly  an  object  of 
legitimate  and  universal  desire,  is  not  and  cannot  be  an 
ethical  end  in  itself.  For  every  end  as  such  is  something 
to  he  done  —  certain  freely  preconceived  relations  to  be  made 
real  in  a  deed  which  as  yet  are  only  potential  in  a  purpose ; 
and  every  ethical  end  is  something  to  be  done  which  shall 
realize  right  relations  in  a  right  deed.  But  happiness  is 
simply  a  state  of  feeling,  not  a  mode  of  action ;  it  is  largely 
independent  alike  of  the  reason  and  of  the  will;  it  is 
neither  a  necessary  consequence  nor  an  invariable  accom- 
paniment nor  an  inseparable  element  of  Right  Doing,  and 
for  that  reason  cannot  be  considered  as  an  ethical  end  in 
itself  without  complete  subversion  of  ethics  as  a  science. 
Herein  lies  the  failure  of  eudaemonism,  hedonism,  and  utili- 


266 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


tarianism  in  all  their  forms,  as  ethical  theories  which  find 
the  supreme  good  in  happiness  and  the  criterion  of  good  in 
conduciveness  to  happiness ;  for  they  omit  all  recognition 
of  Rights  or  the  objective  moral  law  of  Doing  as  Duty. 
But,  in  accordance  with  the  double  standard  of  ethical 
judgment  just  mentioned,  the  supreme  good  is  identity  in 
difference  of  subjective  right  and  objective  right  as  Right 
Doing :  that  is,  (1)  as  right  ideal  or  principle  of  universal 
justice,  necessarily  determined  by  the  Apriori  of  Right, 
but  intuited  and  freely  posited  by  the  ethical  reason  in 
the  objective  major  premise;  (2)  as  right  purpose,  or  free 
formation  by  the  ethical  reason  of  particular  means  to  this 
universal  end  in  the  subjective  minor  premise ;  and  (3)  as 
right  deed,  or  identity  in  difference  of  universal  end  and 
particular  means  wrought  by  the  merely  executive  will  in 
the  subjective-objective  conclusion.  This  is  the  ethical 
syllogism,  the  identity  in  difference  of  absolute  necessity 
and  moral  freedom  in  the  ethical  process ;  and  its  product 
is  Honor  as  Character,  that  is,  the  fixation  of  necessary 
principles  as  the  ground  of  conduct  and  the  resultant  habi- 
tude of  free  acts  as  voluntary  but  instantaneous  obedience 
to  principle.  Nothing  short  of  this  syllogistic  conception 
of  ethical  process  will  suffice  to  give  an  adequate  founda- 
tion to  ethics  as  the  science  of  character  and  conduct  (^^ca, 
Tnores). 

On  quite  another  side  lies  the  failure  of  transcendental- 
ism, sentimentalism,  emotionalism,  intuitionalism,  or  in- 
tuitive morals  in  general.  These  all  correctly  affirm  the 
necessary  or  absolute  nature  of  Right ;  they  correctly  af- 
firm the  perceptive  or  intuitive  function  of  reason  in  the 
comprehension  of  it ;  but  they  erroneously  deny  the  neces- 
sity of  the  logical  reason  as  complementary  to  the  ethi- 
cal reason  in  that  comprehension  as  final  action.  Fear 
or  jealousy  or  contempt  of  logic  as  the  "  reflective  under- 
standing" is  the  hall-mark  of  what  commonly  passes  as 
ethical  idealism,  but  what  ought  rather  to  be  characterized 
as  ignominious  defeat  of  the  intellect  in  ethics.     There  is 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM  267 

but  one  process  in  Being,  Knowing,  and  Doing,  and  that 
process  is  Syllogistic.  Virtue  is  the  ethical  syllogism,  and 
sin  is  the  ethical  fallacy :  the  deed  which  is  both  subjec- 
tively and  objectively  right  is  everywhere  and  always  the 
rigorously  logical  inference  from  a  right  ideal  through  a 
right  purpose.  The  "  prudence  "  or  "  practical  wisdom  " 
or  "  statesmanship  "  which  seeks  a  short  cut  to  happiness  or 
a  royal  road  to  virtue  through  compromise  with  wrong  is 
beyond  the  pale  of  ethics ;  and  the  intuition  of  Right  in 
the  major  premise,  if  not  followed  by  the  uncompromising 
and  effective  purpose  in  the  minor  premise  to  Do  that 
Righty  ends  as  a  miserable  non  sequitur  in  the  conclusion 
—  ends  as  the  Right  Undone.  This  Syllogism  of  Right 
Doing  as  the  very  soul  of  ethics  is  just  what  eudaemonism 
and  utilitarianism,  on  the  one  hand,  and  transcendentalism, 
intuitionalism,  and  ethical  idealism,  on  the  other  hand,  al- 
ways have  failed  to  understand ;  and  the  failure  is  fatal  to 
ethics,  whether  as  the  science  or  as  the  art  of  spiritual  life. 
There  will  be  no  scientific  ethics  until  it  is  grounded  in 
Ethical  Syllogistic,  and  then  these  tedious  disputes  between 
utilitarianism  and  intuitionalism,  each  as  false  as  the  other, 
will  be  hushed.  Certainly  no  other  principle  will  justify 
to  the  scientific  understanding  a  Delphic  oracle  of  Emerson 
which  is  as  scientifically  true  as  it  is  ethically  sublime: 
"  The  moral  law  lies  at  the  centre  of  Nature,  and  radiates 
to  the  circumference." 

Ethical  systems  hitherto  have  all  been  forms  of  ethical 
individualism.  They  have  culminated  in  the  ideal  of  the 
ethical  individual,  as  the  "  superior  man  "  of  Confucianism, 
the  "enlightened  man  "  of  Buddhism,  the  "sage"  of  Stoi- 
cism, the  "saint"  of  Christianity,  the  "good  will"  of 
Kant,  and  so  forth,  or  else  in  the  ideal  of  the  "universal 
individual  "  according  to  the  Hegelian  Paradox  that  "  Ich, 
das  Wir,  und  Wir  das  Ich  ist''  (see  Chapter  XI).  This 
latter  tenet  renders  HegePs  own  distinction  between  MoraU- 
tat,  or  ethicality  of  the  I,  and  Sittlichkeif,  or  ethicality  of 
the  We,  a  misleading  subtilty,  a  distinction  without  a  dif- 


f 


268 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


269 


ference.  Hegel's  We  is  not  a  universal  at  all,  except  in 
the  sense  of  Aristotle's  to  cTSos  to  cVov  ;  it  denotes  no  real 
plurality  of  Many  I's  in  One  We,  except  in  the  sense  of 
Aristotle's  o/ioia  koI  a8ia<^opa,  with  an  empty  numerical  dif- 
ference in  each  as  a  pure  unit,  to  apiB^to  cv,  but  with  no 
individual  or  personal  difference,  no  character.  Such  a 
universal  as  this  recognizes,  indeed,  the  real  common  or 
specific  essence  of  all  men,  which  is  the  true  ground  of 
their  fundamental  equality  in  respect  to  universal  human 
rights  and  duties ;  but  it  totally  suppresses  all  their  real 
reific  essence  as  specimens,  that  is,  all  those  personal  dif- 
ferences of  constitution,  character,  and  circumstance  on 
which  all  particular  rights  and  duties  in  the  varying  ethical 
situations  of  human  life  depend.  The  consequence  is  to 
wipe  out  all  ground  of  valid  distinction  between  Moral'itdt 
and  Sittiichkeit,  and  to  reduce  the  "  universal  individual " 
to  a  fleshless  skeleton,  an  unreality,  a  mere  abstraction,  — 
in  fact,  to  abolish  real  ethics  as  the  law  of  real  life. 

But  syllogistic  ethics,  grounded  as  it  is  in  the  law  of 
unit-universals,  requires  recognition  of  the  profound  differ- 
ence between  the  I,  or  real  person,  and  the  We,  not  as  the 
abstract  "universal  individual,"  but  as  the  real  organism  of 
real  persons,  in  the  various  forms  of  the  family,  the  corpo- 
ration ("  artificial  person  "  or  corpus  corporatinti  of  the  com- 
mon law),  the  church,  the  state,  the  nation,  or  society  in 
general.  Ethics  deals  with  realities,  not  abstractions,  and 
all  ethical  relations  are  social  relations,  even  to  the  extent 
of  duplicating  self  as  at  once  culprit  and  judge  in  the  court 
of  conscience  —  "  /  judge  myself P 

Without  the  generic  unity  of  apperception  (§  69),  justice 
could  not  be  known;  for  justice  is  equity,  and  equity  is 
equality,  and  equality  is  the  ethical  equation  of  the  I  and 
the  Other-I,  the  We  and  the  Other- We,  and  no  less  the  I 
and  the  We  themselves  when  these  meet  in  reciprocal  ac- 
tivity, for  instance,  as  citizen  and  community,  in  the  sphere 
of  Doing.  For  each  member  in  the  ethical  equation  owes 
justice  to  the  other  member,  and  justice  is  the  identity  in 


difference  of  egoism  and  altruism,  or  self-preservation,  non- 
aggression,  and  service,  in  the  specific  equilibrium  of  funda- 
mental human  rights  and  duties.     In  other  words,  all  the 
infinitely  complicated  relations  of  men  to  men  as  individu- 
als, of  men  to  nations  and  nations  to  men,  or  of  nations  to 
nations,  ought,   by  the  Apriori  of  Right  as  the  necessary 
condition  of  civilization  and  all  true  progress  in  civilization, 
to  be  adjusted  in  free  conformity  to  the  ethical  equation  of 
justice.     That  is,  morality  as  universal  justice  in  all  per- 
sonal and  social  Doing  is  the  absolute  condition  and  sole 
ultimate  test  of  civilization :  all  things  else,  all  triumphs 
of  industry,   trade,  commerce,   machinery,   politics,  diplo- 
macy,  arts   useful    and  arts   ornamental,   elegant  letters, 
learning,  science,  philosophy,  religion  itself,  —  all  these  go 
for  nothing  if    this  condition  fails.     Peoples   may  perish 
through  the  injustice  of  other  peoples,  but  they  must  perish 
through  their  own :  moralization  is  the  health  and  corrup- 
tion is  the  suicide  of  civilization.     There  is  but  one  law  of 
life  for  man,  whether  as  a  person  or  as  a  people,  and  that  is 
the  law  of  equal   freedom  devoted  to  equal  justice.     For 
justice  covers  all  that  is  due,  all  duty,  and  the  only  measure 
of  this  is  equality  and  reciprocity.     Hence  ethics  divides 
itself  into  two  great  branches,  the  personal  ethics  of  the  I, 
and  the  social  ethics  of  the  We,  although  neither  can  be 
treated  without  the  other;  for  the  I  is  the  person  and  the 
We  is  the  organism  of  persons,  and  Doing,  under  the  one 
law  of  Right  as  Justice,  must  necessarily  be  more  or  less 
affected  by  the  great  difference  between  individual  and  col- 
lective action.     This  difference  cannot  be  unfolded  here. 
Nevertheless,  it  remains  true  that  all  Doing,  whether  indi- 
vidual or  collective,  must  still  be  subsumption  of  purposes 
under  ideals  in   deeds,  and  thus  exhibit  everywhere  and 
always  the  necessary  constitution  of  the  syllogism ;  and 
that  the  science  of  politics,  as  the  Doing  of  Peoples,  is  not 
co-ordinate  with,  but  strictly  subordinate  to  and  included 
by,  the  science  of  ethics  as  the  Doing  of  Persons.     Only 
when  philosophy  subsumes  the  Course  of  Mind  under  the 


270 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPnY 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


271 


Course  of  Spirit  in  the  Course  of  Nature,  as  the  Syllogism 
of  Doing  in  the  Absolute  I,  will  the  ground  of  that  other 
deep  truth  of  Emerson,  saying  more  perhaps  than  he  con- 
sciously meant,  be  laid  bare  in  all  its  profundity :  **  Men 
reason  badly,  but  Nature  and  Destiny  are  logical." 

§  247.  The  fundamental  laws  of  ethics,  or  absolute 
syllogistic  as  operative  in  Doing,  may  be  summed  up  some- 
what as  follows :  — 

I.  Ideals  evolve  purposes,  and  purposes  evolve  deeds  ; 
therefore,  ideals  evolve  deeds.     This  by  no  means  signi- 
fies or  implies  that  every  ideal  is  good.     It  signifies,  how- 
ever, that  the  subjective  goodness  or  badness  of  a  purpose 
is   necessarily  determined    by   the   objective   goodness  or 
badness  of  the  ideal  to  which  the  purpose  itself  is  freely 
conformed,  and  that  the  subjective  goodness  or  badness  of 
the  deed  is  necessarily  determined  by  that  of  the  purpose 
of  which  it  is  the  execution.     This  is  the  element  of  neces- 
sity in  moral  action.     In  the  sphere  of  Being  as  Being,  the 
relations  of  one  and  many,  unit  and  universal,  identity  and 
difference,    likeness    and    unlikeness,    and   so    forth,   are 
necessary   and  ultimate;  they  belong   to  the  "cannot  be 
otherwise  *'  of  the  syllogism  as  real  form ;  they  constitute 
unconditioned  conditions  of  existence,  the  Apriori  of  Being 
as  Being.     In  the  sphere  of  Being  as  Knowing,  the  equally 
necessary  relation  of  true  and  untrue,  or  false,  that  is,  of 
agreement  or  non-agreement  between  the  immanent  syl- 
logistic constitutions  of  the  real   unit-universal  and  the 
percept-concept  of  it,  is  the  unconditioned  condition  of 
knowledge   or  ignorance ;  it  belongs   to  the   "  cannot  be 
otherwise  "  of  the  syllogism  as  logical  form  ;  it  constitutes 
the  Apriori  of  Being  as  the  Apriori  of  Truth.     So,  in  the 
sphere  of  Being  as  Doing,  the  equally  necessary  relation  of 
good  and  not-good,  or  bad,  that  is,  of  agreement  or  non- 
agreement  between   the  deed    and  the  objectively    right 
ideal,  is  the  unconditioned  condition  of  righteousness  or 
unrighteousness ;  it  belongs  to  the  "  cannot  be  otherwise  " 
of  the  syllogism  as  ethical  form  ;  it  constitutes  the  Apriori 


of  Being  as  the  Apriori  of  Right.  Determination  of  every 
ideal  as  objectively  good  or  not-good  by  the  Apriori  of 
Right  —  the  determination  of  every  deed  as  subjectively 
good  or  not-good  by  the  purpose  which  it  executes :  these 
determinations,  wholly  independent  of  the  freedom  of  the 
subject,  are  elements  of  necessity  in  every  moral  act, 
and  characterize  it  in  its  evolutionary  aspect. 

II.  Ideals  involve  purposes,  and  purposes  involve  deeds ; 
therefore,  ideals  involve  deeds.  Into  every  element  of  the 
ethical  syllogism,  the  will,  as  determined  or  formed  energy, 
and  the  ethical  reason,  as  informer  or  immanent  determin- 
ing former  of  it,  enter  indissolubly.  It  is  the  I  as  this 
inseparable  reason-energy  which  chooses  the  ideal  as  its 
own  end,  constructs  the  purpose  as  its  own  subordinate  end 
or  means,  and  executes  both  ends  in  its  own  deed.  In  the 
pure  ethical  syllogism,  the  ground  of  choice  of  the  ideal  is 
simply  the  rational  perception  of  the  ethical  necessity  of 
Right  as  Justice  or  the  Ought,  that  is,  the  rational  percep- 
tion of  Objective  Moral  Obligation,  the  Objective  Moral 
Law  of  Equal  Freedom  as  the  absolute  condition  or  Apriori 
of  Moral  Being  in  the  We. 

In  the  ethical  fallacy  or  wrong  act,  the  ground  of  choice 
of  the  ideal  is  some  form  of  feeling  instead  of  a  pure  per- 
ception of  objective  ethical  necessity  by  the  reason,  some 
selfish  desire  which  finds  its  end  in  the  pleasant,  or  the 
profitable,  or  the  advantageous,  or  the  popular,  some  lust  of 
lawless  power  or  wealth  or  station,  or  something  other  than 
the  Right  as  the  sole  legitimate  and  ultimate  end  of  Doing ; 
and  this  falsification  of  the  ideal  as  major  premise  of  the 
ethical  syllogism  falsifies  the  deed  as  its  conclusion.  Or, 
if  the  ideal  remains  (apparently)  unfalsified,  the  purpose 
may  be  falsified  as  a  wrong  means  to  a  right  end  ("  the  end 
justifies  the  means,")  and  this  is  a  falsification  of  the 
minor  premise ;  in  which  case  the  deed,  as  ostensibly 
realization  of  the  right  major  end  but  actually  of  the 
wrong  minor  end,  becomes  a  self-contradiction  as  hypocrisy, 
a  bewilderment  to  the  simple  and  a  scandal  to  the  wise,  as 


272 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


pretence  of  a  major  premise  which  is  abandoned  in  the  con- 
clusion, an  unscrupulous  doing  of  real  evil  that  pretended 
good  may  come.^  The  world  is  full  of  such  deeds  as  these, 
true  inferences  from  false  principles  or  false  inferences  from 

1  An  opportune  illustratiun  of  this  fallacy  occurs  in  a  daily  journal 
with  reference  to  a  prominent  English  statesman,  rejwrting  his  jHisitiou 
without  the  least  perception  of  its  logical  and  ethical  self-contradiction  : 
*'He  declares  himself  a  free  trader  in  principle,  but  he  approves  of  a 
departure  from  the  free-trade  policy  of  the  empire  as  a  measure  of  self- 
protection  imiK)sed  by  the  circumstances  in  which  Great  Britain  is  at  tlie 
present  time  placed."  This  is  the  logic  of  the  highwayman,  who  ajn 
proves  of  the  sacredness  of  human  life  in  principle,  but  shoots  this  particu- 
lar traveller,  as  a  measure  of  self-protection  against  his  own  imi)ecunious 
circumstances  by  appropriating  the  traveller's  purse.  It  was  the  logic  of 
a  late  President  of  the  United  States,  who  conceded  that  *'  forcible  annex- 
ation" is  "criminal  aggression"  in  principle,  but  forcibly  annexed  the 
Philippine  Islands  as  a  measure  of  **  benevolent  assimilation,"  imj^sed 
upon  the  United  States  by  a  benevolent  regard  for  its  own  interests  and  a 
benevolent  disregard  of  the  rights  of  the  Filipino  people.  This,  however, 
is  the  logic  of  ethical  barbarism,  which  will  pass  for  "statesmanship" 
until  the  world  is  civilised  by  Ethical  Syllogistic.  It  is  succinctly  formu- 
lated in  the  words  of  Medea  —  video  meliora  proboque,  deteriara  scquor. 
But  it  is  put  to  shame  in  David  Atwood  Wasson's  "  Ideals  " :  — 

Angels  of  Growth,  of  old  in  that  surprise 

Of  your  first  vision,  wild  and  sweet, 
I  poured  in  passionate  sighs 

My  wish  unwise 
That  ye  descend  my  heart  to  meet,  — 

My  heart  so  slow  to  rise  ! 

Now  thus  I  pray  :  Angelic  be  to  hold 

In  heaven  your  shining  poise  afar, 
And  to  my  wishes  bold 

Reply  with  cold 
Sweet  invitation,  like  a  star 

Fixed  in  the  heavens  old. 

Did  ye  descend,  what  were  ye  more  than  I  ? 

Is 't  not  by  this  ye  are  divine. 
That,  native  to  the  sky. 

Ye  cannot  hie 
Downward,  and  give  low  hearts  the  wine 

That  should  reward  the  high  ? 


, 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


273 


true  principles,  works  of  the  trimmer,  the  compromiser,  the 
timeserver,  the  usurper  of  what  belongs  to  others.  "Men 
reason  badly,  but  Nature  and  Destiny  are  logical."  But 
there  are  better  reasoners  among  men  than  the  trimmers, 
and  the  best  of  all  reasoners  is  the  man  who  involves  in  his 
own  deeds  the  unerring  logic  of  Nature  and  of  Destiny  — 
the  man  who  at  all  costs  freely  involves  the  Right  in  every 
ideal,  every  purpose,  every  deed  of  his  own.  For  these 
free  self-determinations,  independent  of  all  the  necessities 
of  Being,  are  the  elements  of  freedom  in  every  moral  act, 
whether  as  right  or  wrong,  and  characterize  it  in  its  invo- 
lutionary  aspect. 

III.  Ideals  involve  and  evolve  purposes,  and  purposes 
involve  and  evolve  deeds;  therefore,  ideals  involve  and 
evolve  deeds.  That  is,  whatever  is  evolved  as  consequent 
must  be  involved  as  antecedent.  This  principle  of  abso- 
lute logic  determines  the  cosmical  process  or  course  of 
nature  as  the  Syllogism  of  Being,  the  cognitive  process  or 
course  of  mind  as  the  Syllogism  of  Knowing,  and  the 
ethical  process  or  course  of  spirit  as  the  Syllogism  of 
Doing ;  and,  though  the  first  of  these  three  is  the  "  earlier 
for  us,"  or  Trpdrcpoi/  Trpos  17/xas,  the  last  of  the  three  is  the 
"earlier  in  itself,"  or  irpoTepov  ry  <^uo-ct.  Logically  consid- 
ered, the  theory  of  evolution  without  involution  by  pure 
causal  necessity,  as  a  slow  instead  of  a  quick  creation  of 
relational  constitutions  or  real  living  forms  in  space  and 
time  out  of  no  j^rtor  forms  at  all,  is  the  logically  self -anni- 
hilating theory  of  a  consequent  which  has  no  antecedent. 
But  evolution  through  involution  is  the  very  essence  of 
logic  itself  in  the  necessary  constitution  of  the  syllogism, 
as  the  passage  from  potential  form  in  the  antecedent  to 
real  form  in  the  consequent  through  the  identity  in  differ- 
ence of  necessity  and  freedom  — -  necessity  as  causal  energy 
or  will,  and  freedom  as  teleological  reason  or  thought. 
Only  the  combination  of  causality  and  teleology  in  the  syl- 
logistic ethical  process  can  possibly  explain  either  the  life 
of  Man  or  the  life  of  Nature,  and  he  risks   little  who 

VOL.  II.  — 18 


1 


I 


¥ 


274 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


predicts  that  the  fashionable  mechanical  evolutionism  of 
Spencer  and  Haeckel  will  be  speedily  outgrown.  It  is  the 
I  alone  that  involves,  and  it  is  the  I  alone  that  evolves: 
cosmical  process,  cognitive  process,  ethical  process,  each 
a  form  of  Syllogistic  or  Absolute  Logic,  are  all  one  and 
the  same  in  the  Absolute  I.  For  the  ethical  process  unites 
in  itself  both  necessity  and  freedom,  and  is  identity  in 
difference  of  evolution  and  involution  as  Being  through 
Knowing  in  Right  Doing. 

IV.   Knoivmg  is  necessary  idealization  of  the  realy   and 
Doing  is  free  realization  of  the  ideal.     Identity  in  differ- 
ence of  these  two  as  the  ethical  syllogism  is  the  self-perpet- 
uating process  of  the  ethical  life,  the  continuity  of  Being 
as  the  ethical  or  good  I.     In  other  words,  the  ethical  I 
(1)  necessarily  idealizes  its  own  present  reality  by  simply 
perceiving  it  at  once  as  it  is  and  as  it  ought  to  be,  both  as 
facts  of  the  present,  and  thereby  knows  itself  to  be  a  moral 
being  under  moral  law ;  (2)  subsumes  this  is  under  this 
ought  to  he  by  freely  forming  some  good  purpose  to  evolve 
the  ideal,  change  the  reality,  and  realize  this  ought  to  be 
in  a  new  is ;  and  (3)  effectuates  this  purpose  in  a  good 
action  as  the  new  is  or  new  reality  of  the  ethical  I  it- 
self.    But  duty  never  ends;    the  right  is  always   to  be 
done;  the  ought  to  be  is  inexhaustible;  the  perfect  ideal 
is  unattainable ;  in  short,  the  ethical  necessity  of  ideal- 
izing the   new  reality  which  is  the   conclusion  of  every 
ethical  syllogism   remains  as  absolute   as  before.     Hence 
the  ethical  syllogism  instantly  repeats   itself  in  another, 
and  this  in  another  still,  and  so  on  with  no  limit;  the 
ethical  syllogism  necessarily  develops^  itself  into  the  ethi- 
cal sorites.    The  syllogistic  ethical  process  in  the  I,  there- 
fore, shows   itself  to  be  interminable  from  within,  and 
terminable,  if  terminable  at  all,  only  from  without.     It  is 
the  Course  of  Spirit,  the  law  and  the  fact  of  all  spiritual 
life  as  the  Syllogism  of  Doing. 

V.   The  syllogistic  ethical  process,  being  thus  self-perpet- 
uating or  interminable  from  within  the  I,  and  terminable, 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


275 


if  terminable  at  all,  only  from  without  the  I,  that  is,  only 
from  the  environment  or  Not-I  (including  all  Other-I's, 
finite  or  infinite),  whenever  this  process  once  begins  in  space 
and  time,  constitutes  the  moral  consciousness,  the  con- 
scious   self-affirmation   of    spirit  as  spirit,   the  essential 
humanity  of  man,  both  as  the  I  and  as  the  We.     Not  un- 
til the  vague  stirrings  of  self-consciousness  in  the  nascent 
being  take  the  definite  form  of  the  ethical  syllogism,  —  not 
until  the  dim  distinction  of  the  I  and  the  Other-I  (see 
Chapters  IV  and  V)  deepens  into  the  perception  of  tlie 
necessity  of  the  ethical  equation   between  tliem   as  reci- 
procity of  rights  and  duties  in  tlie  We,  —that  is,  not  until 
the  ever-present  difference  in  the  I  itself  between  the  is 
and  the  ought  to  be  is  perceived  by  the  ethical  reason  as 
necessary  moral  obligation  to  bring  the  former  into  con- 
formity with  the  latter,  can  the  young  I  become  conscious 
of  itself  as  a  moral  being  under  moral  law.     The  begin- 
ning of  that  consciousness  is  the  birth  of  the  human  spirit 
in  space  and  time,  through  the  development  of  the  generic 
unity  of  apperception  into  the  ethical  unity  of  appercep- 
tion in  the  ethical  reason.     For  the  birth  of  reason,  at  once 
perceptive,  logical,  and  ethical,  is   itself  the  birth  of  the 
spiritual  consciousness  in  the  ethical  syllogism :   (1)  percep- 
tion of  the  objective  necessity  of  the  Good  as  the  Obligatory 
Better  which  is  the  immanent,  involved,  and  ever-growing 
ideal  in  the  present  reality  of  the  I,  or  self-consciousness  as 
a  moral  being  under  moral  law ;  (2)  response  to  the  per- 
ceived present  obligation  as  free  formation  of  the  purpose 
as  a  means  to  evolve  this  Better  out  of  the  present  reality 

—  formation  of  a  good  purpose  being  the  subjective  Good 
and  malformation  or  non-formation  of  it  the  subjective 
Bad ;  and  (3)  realization  of  the  ideal  or  ought  to  be  in  the 
deed  or  new  is  as  necessary  execution  of  the  free  purpose 

—  every  failure  of  a  purpose  being  always  either  a  free 
change  of  it  from  within  or  an  unf ree  frustration  of  it  from 
without.  This  is  the  essential  form  of  the  reason-energy  of 
the  I  as  the  syllogistic  spiritual  consciousness,  and  the 


rl 


-r 


ii 


276 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


birth  of  the  individual  spirit  in  space  and  time  is  forma- 
tion, however  rudimentary,  of  its  first  ethical  syllogism. 
But,  although  neither  memory  nor  observation  can  detect 
the  precise  moment  of  its  birth,  the  actual  beginning  of  the 
ethical  process  in  the  I,  as  the  syllogistic  subsumption  of 
free  purpose  under  necessary  ethical  law  in  the  ethical  deed, 
is  the  I's  quickening  or  coming  to  self-consciousness  as  a 
real  person,  and  reveals  to  the  I  itself  for  the  first  time, 
though  not  the  logical  character,  yet  the  vital  form  and 
method  of  its  own  real  personality  as  a  spiritual  I  in  a 
spiritual  We.  Discovery  of  the  logical  character  of  that 
form  and  method  belongs  later  to  philosophy  alone. 

VI.  Just  as  the  origin  of  the  ethical  I  or  normally  real 
person  can  be  found  only  in  the  syllogistic  ethical  process, 
so  the  only  rational  anticipation  of  its  destiny  must  be 
drawn  from  the  same  source.  It  is  absolutely  right  for  the 
physicist,  the  chemist,  the  anatomist,  the  physiologist,  the 
biologist,  the  psychologist  as  such,  to  exclude  the  inquiry 
into  the  permanence  of  personality  after  death  from  the 
circle  of  their  proper  problems,  and  to  resent  it  as  an 
irrelevancy ;  their  sciences  furnish  no  premises  from  which 
conclusions  on  that  subject,  whether  affirmative  or  negative, 
can  be  drawn.  The  question  belongs  logically  to  ethics 
alone.  It  is  a  question  solely  of  the  continuance  or  non- 
continuance  of  the  syllogistic  ethical  process  as  the  law  of 
spiritual  life,  the  essence  of  real  personality ;  and  this  is 
an  ethical  question,  admitting  only  of  an  ethical  answer. 
That  is,  the  question  of  fact,  "  Does  the  I  as  real  ethical 
person  survive  the  event  of  death  as  still  real  ethical 
person?"  could  only  be  answered  by  experience  of  that 
fact,  and  experience  of  it,  notwithstanding  many  confident 
claims,  seems  to  be  totally  lacking.  Knowledge  is  the 
identity  in  difference  of  experience  and  reason,  and,  how- 
ever absolute  may  be  the  reasons  for  affirming  the  fact  in 
question,  we  cannot  know  it  until  we  have  experienced  it, 
either  in  others  or  in  ourselves.  But  the  case  is  different 
with  the  ethical  question,  ^^  Ought  the  I  as  real  ethical 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


277 


person  to  survive  the  event  of  death  as  still  real  ethical 
person  ?  "  If  we  understand  our  own  inner  life,  we  know 
that,  so  long  as  we  are  sane  and  awake,  we  can  neither  act, 
speak,  nor  think  without  a  purpose  as  means  to  some  end — 
that  purpose-making  and  purpose-executing  is  the  whole  of 
our  conscious  activity  —  that  even  the  changing  of  a  pur- 
pose is  itself  an  act  as  the  making  of  a  different  purpose  — 
and  that  every  act  is  of  necessity  the  realizing  of  some  end 
through  some  purpose  as  minor  end  or  means.  But  all  this 
swift  and  constantly  varying  purposive  activity,  however 
complicated  or  disguised,  goes  on  according  to  the  unvary- 
ing law  of  the  syllogistic  ethical  process,  that  is,  the  self- 
perpetuation  of  real  ethical  personality.  If  all  our  purposes 
were  absolutely  good,  we  ourselves  should  be  absolutely 
good ;  if  they  were  all  absolutely  bad,  we  ourselves  should 
be  absolutely  bad  —  that  is,  we  should  absolutely  cease  to 
be  ethical  persons,  and  annihilate  ourselves  as  such  through 
fatal  abuse  of  our  own  freedom  aud  total  defeat  of  the  con- 
ditions of  our  own  existence.  As  matter  of  fact,  we  are 
neither  one  nor  the  other,  neither  absolutely  good  nor  abso- 
lutely bad ;  the  best  of  us  is  not  perfect,  and  the  worst  of 
us  is  not  all  evil ;  nay,  the  worst  of  us  makes  vastly  more 
good  than  bad  purposes,  and  the  belief  in  "  honor  among 
thieves  "  is  no  superstition.  Hence  the  free  self-perpetua- 
tion of  our  ethical  personality  means  the  perpetuation  of 
more  good  than  evil ;  and  even  on  this  view  of  the  case  the 
ethical  question,  "  Ought  the  I  to  survive  death  as  real  ethical 
person?"  must  be  affirmatively  answered  on  ethical  grounds. 
But  the  case  is  stronger  than  that.  If  all  human  beings  as 
ethical  persons  cease  to  exist  as  such  at  death,  and  if  the 
whole  human  race  itself  perishes  totally  in  the  final  ex- 
haustion or  destruction  of  the  globe  as  its  habitat,  then  all 
the  ethical  good  achieved  in  the  rise  of  civilization  and  the 
moral  education  of  mankind  will  perish  with  them,  and 
"leave  not  a  wrack  behind."  So  understood,  the  ethical 
question  whether  the  good  I  and  the  good  We  ought  to 
survive  the  event  of  death  becomes  the  broader  question 


I 


T" 


278 


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PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


279 


I 


whether  the  Good  itself  ought  to  be  perpetual.  To  this 
ethical  question  what  is  the  ethical  answer? 

VII.  Ought  the  Grood  as  Good  to  be  perpetual?  And 
how  can  it  be  perpetual  ? 

The  real  and  unreal,  or  existence  and  non-existence, 
in  Being  —  the  true  and  not-true  or  false,  in  Knowing 
—  the  right  and  not-right  or  wrong,  the  good  and  not-good 
or  bad,  in  Doing :  tbese  are  absolute  categories  and  pri- 
mordial distinctions  in  the  nature  of  things,  and  cannot  be 
explained  by  other  categories  or  distinctions  because  they 
are  necessarily  presupposed  by  all  these  others.  In  Doing, 
the  right  as  the  just  is  the  only  ethical  good,  because  it  is 
the  necessary  and  only  end  of  ethical  action.  Happiness 
and  love  are  goods  of  feeling,  but  not  ethical  goods,  because 
they  cannot  be  made  the  ends  of  direct  action,  and  because 
they  result  from  conditions  which  are  mostly  independent 
of  direct  action  —  can  be  reached  only  indirectly  by  actions 
which  must  themselves  be  judged  ethically  as  right  or 
wrong,  just  or  unjust ;  whence  it  follows  that  happiness 
and  love,  if  results  of  wrong  action  (as  they  too  often  are), 
become  themselves  wrong  by  reflection  of  that  wrong.  It 
is  folly  to  suppose  the  good  must  needs  be  happy  or  the 
wicked  unhappy  :  it  is  not  so.  We  cannot  even  say  that 
the  good  ought  to  be  happy,  for  the  ought  is  fulfilled  in 
being  good,  be  the  consequence  what  it  may.  The  only 
ethical  good  is  the  Right  cOs  Justice.  On  its  subjective  side, 
justice  is  the  Self- Sovereignty  of  the  I  as  I  and  of  the  We 
as  We  —  that  is,  self-preservation  of  our  own  being  and 
self-respect  through  self-defence  of  our  freedom  against  all 
aggression,  self-restraint  or  non-aggression  on  the  equal 
freedom  of  all  others,  and  self-devotion  or  due  yet  free 
service  of  all  others  as  equal  brothers  in  the  great  human 
family.  On  its  objective  side,  justice  is  the  state  of  recog- 
nized and  actualized  equality  of  all  I 's  in  the  We  as  free 
moral  beings  under  the  Apriori  of  Right  as  objective 
moral  law  —  the  moral  equilibrium  of  the  universe.  The 
Grood  as  Good,  therefore,  is   (1)   the   moral  law  or  the 


Apriori  of  Right,  which  is  real  only  as  moral  obligation  or 
the  unconditioned    condition  of  either  Right  or  Wrong 
Doing,  and  (2)  Right  Doing  itself,  which  is  real  only  as  it  is 
realized  in  the  right  doings  of  the  ethical  I  in  the  We. 
In  the  first  aspect,  the  Good  is  necessarily  perpetual  as  the 
Apriori  of  Right,  but  it  would  be  unreal  in  itself  alone,  as 
the  blank  condition  which  can  be  filled  or  realized  only  by 
the   conditioned.    In  the  second  aspect,  the  Good  can  be 
perpetuated  as  Right  Doing  only  in  the  perpetuity  of  the 
right-doer,  that  is,  the  ethical  I  in  the  We.     The  Good  as 
Good  ought  to  be  both  real  and  perpetual  because  it  is  it- 
self the  Ought ;  but  it  cannot  be  real  at  all  except  as  Right 
Doing,  and  it  cannot  be  perpetual  as  Right  Doing  unless  the 
right-doer  is  perpetual.      It  follows   that  the  ethical  I, 
which  is  the  only  possible  right-doer,  ought  to  be  perpetual 
in  a  continuous  life  to  which  death,  so  called,  is  a  mere 
incident  or  momentary  phase.     In  other  words,  the  syllo- 
gistic ethical  process,  which  is  Right  Doing,  and  which  is 
self-perpetuating  or  interminable  from  within  the  ethical 
I  as  right-doer,  ought  not  to  be  terminated  from  without 
the  right-doer  by  the  environment. 

But  this  raises  a  new  and  still  deeper  question.  By  what 
right  is  an  ethical  relation  of  ought  or  ought  not  to  be 
affirmed  between  the  ethical  T,  as  human  person  subject  to 
death,  and  the  cosmical  environment  ?  By  what  right  can 
the  universe  be  held  to  owe  to  any  of  its  own  products  the 
continuance  of  its  life  beyond  the  grave  in  any  form  ? 
What  is  the  ethical  ground  of  this  seemingly  presumptuous 

"  o^ight  not "  ? 

VIII.  If  there  is  any  truth  in  this  Syllogistic  Philosophy, 
it  has  been  proved  that  Reality,  or  Being  as  the  One  in 
Existence  as  the  Many,  is  the  identity  in  difference  of 
substance,  essence,  and  process ;  that  substance  is  Energy 
or  the  world-will  as  universal  causality,  essence  is  Reason 
or  the  world-intellect  as  universal  teleology,  and  process  is 
Syllogistic  or  identity  in  difference  of  Energy  and  Reason 
as   evolution  through  involution ;  that  the   immanent   re- 


T^" 


280 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PfflLOSOPHY 


i 


lational  constitution  of  such  a  world  is  that  of  free  self- 
determination  under  the  necessary  Apriori  of  Being,  as 
identity  in  difference  of  the  conditioned  and  the  uncon- 
ditioned ;  and  that  a  world  so  constituted  must  be  a  world 
of  Being  through  Knowing  in  Doing  —  in  other  words, 
Absolute  I  or  Ethical  All-Person.  This,  then,  is  the 
"  environment "  of  the  human  I  as  ethical  person  ;  and  the 
relation  between  the  two  must  be  that  of  ethical  person  to 
Ethical  All-Person.  It  is  of  necessity  the  absolute  rela- 
tion of  Right  —  of  Justice — of  Honor  —  of  the  ought  a,nd 
the  ought  not. 

For  the  history  of  the  universe  is  the  dimly  yet  cer- 
tainly discerned  syllogistic  ethical  process  —  evolution  of 
the  spiritual  out  of  the  natural  through  prior  involution  of 
the  spiritual  into  the  natural  —  Being  through  Knowing 
in  Doing  —  course  of  Spirit  through  course  of  Mind  in 
course  of  Nature.  Just  as  soon  as  the  finite  ethical  person 
(it  matters  not  when  nor  where  nor  how)  begins  to  exist  as 
a  conscious  unit  of  subjective  freedom  under  the  objective 
necessity  of  moral  obligation,  then  begins  the  self-perpet- 
uating ethical  process  which  cannot  be  stopped  from  within 
and  ought  not  to  be  stopped  from  without.  If  it  be  ar- 
gued that  no  self-perpetuating  process  can  possibly  begin, 
because  "  to  begin  implies  to  end,'*  the  reply  comes  at  once 
that  division  of  1  by  3,  as  a  mathematical  process,  be- 
gins and  yet  perpetuates  itself  in  the  circulating  decimal 
0,33333  -h  ad  infinitum  ;  for  the  mind  can  find  no  possible 
end  of  the  process  except  by  ceasing  to  pursue  it  and  leaving 
it  unfinished,  that  is,  by  recognizing  its  necessary  and  eternal 
self-perpetuation.  However  halting,  wayward,  and  zigzag 
may  be  the  course  of  its  development  in  us,  the  never- 
ceasing  purposive  activity  of  the  I  is  instantly  subsumed 
under  the  never-changing  moral  law  as  the  right  deed  or 
the  wrong  deed,  and  instantly  judged  on  its  subjective  side 
by  the  doer  himself  in  the  court  of  conscience;  and,  even 
in  bad  cases,  the  net  outcome  of  it  on  its  objective  side  is 
usually  more  of  good  than  of  bad.     The  very  essence  of 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


281 


the  ethical  process,  whether  in  the  finite  or  in  the  infinite, 
is  to  realize  and  perpetuate  the  Good ;  and  whatever  does 
that  deserves  to  be  itself  perpetuated  —  in  other  words, 
ought  by  the  Apriori  of  Right  to  be  perpetual.  From  these 
considerations  it  plainly  follows  that  the  "environment" 
of  the  human  ethical  person,  being  itself  the  Ethical  All- 
Person,  ought  not  to  stop  the  human  ethical  process  which, 
even  on  an  infinitesimal  scale,  is  doing  its  own  infinite 
work  of  realizing  and  perpetuating  the  Good. 

IX.   The  answer  which  ethics  gives  to  the  question  of 
immortality,  therefore,  is  that  the  permanence  of  the  per- 
sonal I  after  death  cannot  be  known  empirically  until  it  is 
actually  experienced,  but  that  it  is  already  known  ration- 
ally as  an  ethical  and  so  far  a  logical  necessity.     From  the 
ground-principles  of  absolute  logic  and  the  Syllogistic  Phi- 
losophy it  is  a  necessary  inference  that  the  syllogistic  ethi- 
cal process  in  the  I  as  such  (realization  of  the  ideal  through 
the  purpose  in  the  deed)  is  itself  the  principle  of  eternal  life, 
and  establishes  between  the  human  I  and  the  Absolute  I  a 
moral  relation  of  identity  in  difference  so  profound,  a  com- 
munity of  moral  nature  so  absolute  and  so  real,  that  reason 
cannot  deny  the  moral  relationship  without  denying  its 
own  fundamental  law  of  the  syllogism  itself.    The  Ai)riori 
of  Right,  which  is  the  element  of  necessity  in  the  syllogis- 
tic ethical  process,  can  be  realized  only  in  the  Righteous  I, 
that  is,  the  I  which  freely  subsumes  under  it  all  its  own 
purposive  activity  in  its  own  righteous  acts ;  and  this  holds 
good  of  every  I,  human  or  absolute.     In  other  words,  the 
ethical  relation  between  the  human  I  and  the  Absolute  I 
must  be  determined  by  the  same  law  of  Right,  or  Justice, 
or  Honor,  which  determines  the  ethical  relation  of  I  to  I  in 
the  human  world.     As  we  have  seen,  the  ethical  process 
in  the  I  is  self-perpetuating  or  interminable  from  within, 
and  can  be  terminated  only  from  without.     If  one  human 
I  takes  merely  the  physical  life  of  another  human  I  with- 
out just  reason,  we  call  it  murder,  although  the  deed  can- 
not reach  the  self-perpetuating  process  which  perpetuates 


282 


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PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


283 


«  ' 


iM- 


tf 


the  Good.    If,  however,  the  Absolute  I  should  take  without 
just  reason  both  the  physical  and  the  spiritual  life  of  a 
righteous  human  I,  and  thereby  stop  the  self-perpetuating 
process  which,  however  imperfectly,  was  yet  perpetuating 
the  Good,  could  we  characterize  the  deed  by  any  name  less 
stern  ?    Why  do  we  shrink  from  the  bare  suggestion,  if 
not  because  we  know  that  the  Absolute  I  must  be  the  Ab- 
solutely Righteous  I  ?     We  need  the  courage  of  logic,  if 
we  would  judge  righteous  or  reasonable  judgment  in  ethics. 
We  need  to  know  that  the  relation  of  every  I  to  every  other 
I,  even  though  it  be  that  of  creature  and  Creator,  must  be 
determined  by  the  absolute  and  changeless  law  of  justice 
and  honor,  and  that  it  would  be  injustice,  dishonor,  out- 
rage, to  stop  in  any  I  the  ethical  process  which  was  per- 
petuating the  Good.    Such  a  process  o^ight  to  be  perpetuated, 
and  ought  not  to  be  terminated.     In  other  words,  the  ethi- 
cal necessity  of  the  continuation  of  it  beyond  what  we  call 
death  is  so  clear,  and  so  overwhelming  on  rigorously  ra- 
tional grounds,  that,  if  ethical  necessity  be  a  good  ground 
of  belief  in  the  absence  of  all  experience  of  the  fact,  no 
belief  is  better  grounded  in  reason  alone  than  the  belief  in 
personal  immortality.     For  myself,  I  believe  in  it  because 
the  Absolute  I  is  necessarily  the  absolute  realization  of 
righteousness,  justice,  and  honor,  —  incapable,  therefore,  of 
the  unethical  act  of  defeating  the  Good  by  failing  to  per- 
petuate the  ethical  I  that  is  freely  perpetuating  that  Good, 
or  by  disregarding  the  right  of  the  least  of  its  servants  to 
persevere  in  a  faithful  service  of  it.     I  believe  in  it  because 
the  "Oversoul"  is  the  only  absolute  realization  of  the 
Apriori  of  Right  in  the  Absolute  Right-Doer,  and  therefore 
incapable  of  dishonor  or  meanness  towards  the  finite  yet 
faithful  right-doers,  imperfect  as  they  are,  whose  life-prin- 
ciple, like  his  own,  is  free  service  of  the  necessary  Right. 
Tersely  put,  I  believe   in   personal   immortality   because 
(I  say  it  with  all  reverence)  I  believe  that  God  is  the  only 
perfect  gentleman. 
X.   It  remains  to  show  briefly  here  how  the  principles  of 


the  syllogistic  ethics  bear  on  the  problem  of  evil.  It  has 
been  shown  that  happiness  and  love,  supremely  desirable 
as  they  are  for  their  own  sake,  are  goods  of  feeling,  but  are 
not  and  cannot  be  ethical  ends  because  they  cannot  be 
directly  effected  by  Doing.  They  cannot  be  made  to  order. 
If,  as  is  too  commonly  the  case,  they  are  put  in  the  place 
of  ultimate  ends  of  action,  they  are  not  thereby  made 
ethical  ends,  but  often  defeat  the  one  ethical  end  of  the 
Good  as  Right  or  Justice,  and  often  effect  the  Bad  as  Wrong 
or  Injustice.  The  maximum  of  happiness  and  love  that  is 
possible  for  man,  whether  as  the  I  or  as  the  We,  depends 
on  justice  as  their  condition  ;  they  spring  up  like  the  grass 
in  its  sunshine,  and  wilt  in  its  absence ;  they  are  poisonous 
weeds  without  it.  In  spite  of  inevitable  natural  calamities, 
such  as  sickness  or  the  death  of  friends,  universal  and  per- 
fect justice  would  make  a  comparative  heaven  of  this  world, 
while  nothing  but  misery  comes  in  the  end  from  injustice. 
On  the  other  hand,  unhappiness  and  hate,  abhorrent  as  they 
are  in  themselves,  are  evils  of  feeling,  but  not  even  negative 
ethical  ends,  because  they  cannot  be  directly  removed  by 
Doing.  No  effort  can  directly  produce  happiness  or  love, 
and  no  effort  can  directly  banish  unhappiness  or  hate ;  but 
the  world  of  direct  effort  is  the  world  of  ethics.  Hence  the 
only  ethical  good  is  Right  Doing,  the  only  ethical  evil  is 
Wrong  Doing ;  and  freedom,  or  the  free  self-determination 
of  the  I  to  either  alternative,  lies  in  the  reason,  which, 
while  perceiving  the  ethical  necessity  of  the  Right  as  the 
Just,  frames  the  just  or  the  unjust  purpose  that  deter- 
mines the  blindly  executive  will  in  the  just  or  unjust  deed, 
and  which  thus  takes  the  form  of  the  ethical  syllogism  or 
the  ethical  fallacy.  That  is,  moral  freedom  lies  in  the 
framing  of  the  purpose,  as  either  in  concord  with  the  per- 
ceived necessity  of  the  Just  or  in  concord  with  some  other 
end  selfishly  substituted  for  it ;  and  moral  evil  lies  in  this 
selfish  substitution,  which  is  negation  of  the  perceived 
necessity  of  the  Just  and  is  realized  in  the  framing  of  the 
unjust  purpose  and  its  execution  in  the  unjust  deed.     In 


284 


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PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


285 


f> 


f 


this  free  negation  or  rejection  of  the  Eight  as  realized  in 
the  unjust  purpose  and  deed  consists  the  essence  of  sub- 
jective moral  evil  as  the  Not-Right  or  Wrong;  while  objec- 
tive moral  evil  as  injury  to  others  enters  into  the  causal 
series  of  the  world  as  a  part  of  it.  Human  injustice  and 
injury,  as  moral  evil,  are  the  cause  of  nine-tenths  of  human 
suffering. 

But  there  is  another  tenth,  the  so-called  natural  or  physi- 
cal evils  of  death,  disease,  pain,  famine,  pestilence,  earth- 
quakes, and  so  forth.  Are  these,  with  all  the  suffering 
entailed  by  them  on  the  animal  as  well  as  the  human  world, 
to  be  referred  to  the  Absolute  I  as  its  own  moral  evil,  origi- 
nating as  injustice  and  injury  in  the  Divine  Purpose  ?  Such 
a  notion  is  irrational.  Moral  evils  are  wrongs,  because  they 
are  purposed,  not  necessary,  acts  of  freedom ;  natural  evils 
are  not  wrongs,  because  they  are  not  purposed  acts  of  free- 
dom, but  necessities  by  the  Apriori  of  Being,  unavoidable 
results  of  the  conditions  of  Existence,  inseparable  accompa- 
niments or  consequences  of  the  limitation  which  is  the 
absolute  condition  of  all  finite  being  as  such.  The  real 
universe  or  absolute  unit-universal  is  identity  in  difference 
of  Being  as  One  and  Existents  as  Many.  In  the  nature  of 
things,  Being  as  One  must  be  infinite,  that  is,  not  limited, 
because  there  can  "  be  "  nothing  else  to  limit  it ;  but  Exist- 
ents as  Many  must  be  finite,  that  is,  must  be  constituted  as 
many  units  whose  co-existence  or  co-inherence  in  the  uni- 
versal One  Being  is  necessary  limitation  of  each  by  the 
others.  Not  even  Omnipotence  as  absolutely  free  and  ab- 
solutely unopposed  Will  could  cancel  this  necessity  or  pre- 
vent its  consequences,  for  it  is  the  Apriori  of  Being  itself. 
It  is  this  necessary  finitude  of  the  finite  which  constitutes 
the  essence  and  reality  of  natural  evil,  and  evil  must  be 
real  in  all  possible  worlds  so  long  as  Being  remains  the 
One  in  the  Many.  But  it  is  the  essence  of  Good  to  over- 
come Evil,  to  subdue  it  to  its  own  uses  through  the  free 
ethical  reason  —  "  from  seeming  evil  still  educing  good ; " 
and  its  necessary  method  is  the  syllogistic  ethical  process 


of  evolution  through  involution,  identical  in  every  I  as  I, 
whether  finite  or  infinite.  In  truth,  the  Absolute  I  could 
have  no  end  to  achieve,  no  ideal  to  realize,  no  ground  what- 
ever for  its  eternal  purposive  activity,  in  itself  as  the  One 
Being  alone ;  it  can  have  an  end,  an  ideal,  a  ground  of  pur- 
pose, only  in  itself  as  the  One  Being  in  Many  Existents. 
Hence  the  necessary  finitude  of  the  finite,  that  is,  the  neces- 
sity of  natural  evil,  becomes  the  condition  of  the  reality  of 
Good  itself  as  the  Infinite  Life,  the  eternally  continuous 
but  eternally  victorious  march  of  the  Divine  Purpose  to 
the  realization  of  its  own  Divine  Ideal,  the  eternal  self- 
devotion  of  the  Absolute  I  to  the  spiritual  education  and 
higher  possible  beatification  of  its  own  Finite  I's.  Avoid- 
able evil  as  Wrong  Doing  is  the  only  evil  which  ought  not 
to  be  and  need  not  be ;  it  should  be  fought  at  all  costs  to 
the  bitter  end.  But  unavoidable  evil,  such  as  pain,  sorrow, 
death,  is  the  fate  of  the  finite  over  and  above  all  Provi- 
dence, yet  through  that  very  fact  becomes  the  absolute 
condition  of  all  goodness  human  or  divine.  So  much  here 
for  the  problem  of  evil  from  the  standpoint  of  the  syllo- 
gistic ethics. 

§  248.  From  this  survey,  however  brief  and  inadequate, 
of  the  three  spheres  of  ontology,  epistemology,  and  ethics, 
or  of  Being,  Knowing,  and  Doing,  it  becomes  very  clear 
that  one  and  the  same  method  obtains  in  each,  the  method 
of  absolute  syllogistic.  Genera,  species,  and  specimens  are 
the  only  realities  in  Being ;  genera  are  realized  only  in  the 
whole  of  their  species,  and  species  only  in  the  whole  of 
their  specimens ;  the  relation  of  genus,  species,  and  speci- 
men is  necessarily  that  of  the  three  terms  in  the  syllogism ; 
the  production  of  a  new  specimen  is  necessarily  the  process 
of  evolution  through  involution,  as  inheritance  of  generic 
and  specific  characters  in  its  involved  common  essence  and 
adaptation  of  these  to  the  environment  in  its  evolved  in- 
dividual difference;  and  this  is  manifestly  a  process  of 
objective  inference,  being  a  syllogistic  evolution  in  the  con- 
sequent, or  new  specimen,  of  what  was  already  involved  in 


286 


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PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


287 


the  antecedent,  or  pre-existent  genus  and  species.  Simi- 
larly, ideas,  concepts,  and  percepts  are  the  only  realities 
in  Knowing ;  ideas  are  realized  only  in  concepts,  and  con- 
cepts only  in  percepts ;  the  relation  of  idea,  concept,  and 
percept  is  that  of  the  three  terms  of  the  syllogism;  the 
acquisition  of  a  new  percept  is  the  involution  of  already 
acquired  concepts  and  ideas  in  the  new  experience,  or  in- 
heritance of  its  common  essence,  and  evolution  of  its  indi- 
vidual difference  through  adaptation  of  these  inherited 
forms  to  the  object  newly  perceived  in  the  environment ; 
and  this  is  a  process  of  subjective  inference,  a  logical  for- 
mation of  the  new  percept  as  percept-concept  or  concrete 
syllogism  —  the  syllogistic  identity  in  difference  of  expe- 
rience and  reason  in  a  new  cognition.  Lastly,  ideals,  pur- 
poses, and  deeds  are  the  only  realities  in  Doing ;  ideals  are 
realized  only  in  purposes,  and  purposes  only  in  deeds ;  the 
relation  of  ideal,  purpose,  and  deed  is  that  of  the  three 
terms  of  the  syllogism ;  the  performance  of  a  new  deed  is 
the  involution  of  some  freely  chosen  ideal  and  freely  formed 
purpose  in  a  new  volition,  or  inheritance  of  the  common 
essence  of  the  volition  as  subjectively  right  or  wrong,  and 
evolution  of  this  subjective  antecedent  in  its  objective  con- 
sequent through  the  blind  energy  of  the  wiU,  as  formation 
of  a  change  in  the  environment  through  purposed  adapta- 
tion to  it,  or  realization  of  the  individual  difference  of  the 
deed  as  objectively  right  or  wrong ;  and  this  is  a  process  of 
subjective-objective  inference,  an  objective  modification  of 
the  environment  as  self-exprossion  of  the  subject  in  it,  a 
syllogistic  self-realization  of  the  I  as  identity  in  difference 
of  experience,  reason,  and  will  in  a  new  subjective-<^)bjective 
deed. 

In  this  all-penetrative  and  all-determinative  unity  of  the 
syllogistic  i)rocess  as  the  method  of  all  Nature,  all  Mind, 
and  all  Spirit,  Being  realizes  itself  through  Knowing  in 
Doing :  that  is,  Doing  is  the  conclusion  of  the  Syllogism  of 
Being,  the  identity  in  difference  of  necessity  and  freedom, 
and  therefore  the  identity  in  difference  of  Nature,  Mind, 


and  Spirit  in  the  Absolute  I  as  the  Ethical  All-Person. 
Through  this  principle  of  absolute  syllogistic  as  the  law  of 
unit-universals,  or  Apriori  of  Being,  or  necessary  identity 
of  method  in  the  spheres  of  reality  and  ideality  alike,  phi- 
losophy attains  its  end  in  Syllogistic  as  the  principle  of 
absolute  methodology,  and  in  Personality  as  the  topmost 
reach  of  its  application  in  human  knowledge.  Not  person- 
ality in  the  raw  and  gross  form  of  the  vulgar  anthropo- 
morphism, of  course,  hwt  personality  as  identity  in  difference 
of  causality,  finality,  and  ethieality  in  the  I  as  such  —  in 
the  I  as  human  and  in  the  I  as  Divine,  since  personality  so 
comprehended  is  raised  above  all  possible  differences  of 
degree  or  scope  as  finite  and  infinite.  The  Syllogism  of 
l^eing,  the  Syllogism  of  Knowing,  the  Syllogism  of  Doing : 
these  are  the  major,  middle,  and  minor  terms  of  philosophy 
itself  as  the  Syllogism  of  Syllogisms,  read  extensively  in 
the  order  named  and  intensively  in  this  order  reversed.  In 
other  words,  philosophy  is  the  identity  in  difference  of 
ontology,  epistemology,  and  ethics,  under  which  funda- 
mental sciences  all  others  are  to  be  classed  as  branches, 
subdivisions,  or  applications ;  and  universal  human  knowl- 
edge with  all  its  particularities  and  all  its  universalities, 
that  is,  science  in  its  widest  significance,  is  itself  philoso- 
phy as  a  concrete  syllogism  in  the  Syllogism  of  Syllogisms. 
This  in  its  simplest  form  is  as  follows : 

i.  Knowing  is  Being :  that  is,  true  judgments  are  real  specimens, 
ii.  Doing  is  Knowing  :  that  is,  ethical  deeds  are  true  judgments, 
iii.  Therefore,  Doing  is   Being:    that  is,  ethical  deeds  are   real 
specimens. 

In  other  words,  the  Syllogism  of  Being  through  the  Syllo- 
gism of  Knowing  is  the  Syllogism  of  Doing;  whence  it 
follows  that  the  three  fundamental  sciences  must  be  sim- 
ilarly related,  —  that  ontology  through  epistemology  is 
ethics,  and  that  philosophy,  as  identity  in  difference  of  the 
three,  is  the  Syllogism  of  Syllogisms. 

Absolute  logic  as  Syllogistic  is  the  principle  of  the  ne- 


288 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


cessity  and  universality  of  evolution  through  involution  — 
the  principle  that  whatever  is  evolved  as  consequent  must 
be  involved  as  antecedent.  This  is  the  actual  method  of 
all  existence,  all  knowledge  or  true  thought,  and  all  virtue 
or  good  conduct  —  the  method  alike  of  Nature,  of  Mind, 
and  of  Spirit  —  the  method  of  these  three  in  one  in  the  I 
as  such,  whether  finite  or  infinite,  human  person  or  Divine 
All-Person.  Hence  absolute  syllogistic  is  the  constitutive 
principle  of  Person  a.lity,  as  both  the  source  and  outcome 
of  all  that  is ;  and  philosophy,  necessarily  determined  as  to 
method  and  form  by  the  method  and  form  of  that  which  it 
philosophizes,  can  be  no  other  than  what  Aristotle  found 
it  to  be,  that  is,  theology  —  not  theology  as  he  conceived  it, 
but  theology  modernized  as  scientific  realism  and  scientific 
theism.  The  method  of  philosophy,  therefore,  is  Syllo- 
gistic, or  the  principle  of  Personality  in  the  I  as  I ;  and  its 
system  is  the  Syllogism  of  Syllogisms,  or  the  form  of  Life  in 
the  I  as  identity  in  difference  of  Being,  Knowing,  and  Doing. 
§  249.  From  method  as  Syllogistic  to  system  as  Syllo- 
gism of  Syllogisms,  that  is,  from  the  principle  of  Personal- 
ity to  the  form  of  Life ;  in  this  transition  lies  the  transition 
from  philosophy  as  Ideality  to  religion  as  Reality,  that  is, 
from  the  Syllogism  of  Syllogisms  to  the  Absolute  Syllo- 
gism, as  identity  in  difference  of  Ideality  and  Reality  in 
the  "Living  God,"  the  Absolute  Unit-Universal  which  is 
at  once  snmrrium  genus  and  summurn  tJidividuum,  the  I  of 
I's  or  Person  of  Persons  "  in  whom  we  live  and  move  and 
have  our  being."  Expressed  in  terms  of  human  thinking, 
the  Absolute  Syllogism  of  the  World  as  the  Living  God 
may  be  thus  set  down ;  — 

i.  We  Are  in  I  AM. 
ii.  I  Am  in  We  Are. 
iii.   Therefore,  I  Am  in  I  AM. 

This  is  the  "  Absolute  Idea,"  not  at  all,  as  Hegel  expounds 
it,  as  the  dialectical  ultimation  of  reines  D&nken  or  Reason 
without  Experience,  but  rather  as  the  syllogistic  Absolute 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


289 


Reality  or  identity  in  difference  of  Reason  and  Experi- 
ence, the  Absolute  Reason  in  the  Absolute  Fact,  the  inter- 
penetration  of  Nature,  Mind,  and  Spirit,  or  Being,  Knowing, 
and  Doing,  in  the  Real  Universe  as  science  knows  it,  or 
will  know  it  when  it  finds  the  supreme  generalization  in 
Syllogistic  as  the  law  of  unit-universals  or  the  Apriori  of 
Being.  The  Absolute  Syllogism  is  at  once  the  Absolute 
Idea  and  the  Absolute  Reality  as  the  ground  of  Absolute 
Religion,  and  its  transcendent  importance  demands  an  at- 
tempt to  interpret  some  of  its  meanings  more  fully. 

I.  The  Absolute  Syllogism  means  that  the  human  I  de- 
rives its  being  from  the  We,  and  that  the  We  derives  its 
being  from  the  Absolute  I ;  that  the  We,  as  species,  neces- 
sarily mediates  between  the  Absolute  I,  as  summum  genusy 
and  the  finite  I,  as  specimen  or  infimum  individuumy  not 
only  in  existence,  but  also  in  the  knowledge  of  that  exist- 
ence ;  that  the  finite  I  cannot  know  the  Absolute  I  except 
through  the  We,  because  the  Absolute  I  evolves  the  finite  I 
through  the  We  alone,  and  because  knowledge  of  the  species 
must  mediate  between  that  of  the  specimen  and  that  of  the 
genus. 

II.  It  means  that  the  Absolute  I  itself,  no  less  than  the 
finite  I,  is  conditioned  by  the  We,  just  as  the  parent  is  con- 
ditioned by  the  child  no  less  than  the  child  by  the  parent ; 
that  the  One  must  evolve  the  Many  in  order  to  be  the  One, 
and  that  the  Many  must  involve  the  One  in  order  to  be  the 
Many ;  that  the  Absolute  I  and  the  finite  I  must  have  a 
common  generic  and  specific  essence  no  less  than  each  must 
have  its  unique  reific  essence ;  that  this  common  essence  is 
the  necessary  identity  in  difference  of  Being,  Knowing, 
and  Doing,  and  that  the  reific  essence  or  individual  differ- 
ence is  the  free,  unique,  and  self-born  individual  Character ; 
that  God  needs  us  just  as  much  as  we  need  him  ;  that  (un- 
derstanding by  Man  all  spiritual  beings)  our  human  religion 
is  self-devotion  to  God  in  Man,  and  that  the  Divine  Reli- 
gion is  self-devotion  to  Man  in  God ;  and  that  the  perfec- 
tion of  this  reciprocal  self-devotion  is  the  perfect  Love. 

VOL.  II.  — 19 


290 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


III.  It  means  that  the  human-divine  ideal  of  the  Uni- 
verse is  the  Home,  to  be  gradually  wrought  out  and  estab- 
lished by  the  educated  freedom  of  all  its  inmates,  here  and 
hereafter,  through  universal  service  of  the  Good  as  Truth, 
Justice,  and  Love ;  and  that  the  ideal  of  the  Home,  as  it 
may  be  and  sometimes  is  realized  on  this  earth  is  the  natural 
type  and  prophecy  of  the  Heaven  which  we  rationally  be- 
lieve ought  to  be  awaiting  us  in  the  unrevealed  future. 

IV.  It  means  that  the  principle  of  the  generic  unity  of 
apperception,  as  conditioning,  supplementing,  and  realizing 
the  "  synthetical  unity  of  apperception  "  and  as  explained 
in  Chapters  III,  IV,  and  V,  is  the  principle  of  self-con- 
sciousness, race-consciousness,  and  God-consciousness  in  the 
personal  consciousness  of  the  I  in  the  We  in  the  Absolute  I ; 
that  the  relation  of  these  three  elements  of  personal  con- 
sciousness may  be  imperfectly  symbolized  by  three  con- 
centric circles  of  differing  radius,  the  smallest  as  the  I, 
the  larger  as  the  We,  and  the  largest  as  the  Absolute  I,  the 
circle  "whose  centre  is  everywhere  and  whose  circumfer- 
ence is  nowhere;"  that  the  area  of  the  smallest  is  part 
of  the  areas  of  the  other  two,  and  is  so  far  the  realized 
identity  in  difference  of  all  three;  and  that  this  syllogistic 
God-consciousness  is  the  actual  truth  underlying  the  mys- 
tical "intuition  of  God''  as  taught  by  New  England 
Transcendentalism. 

V.  It  means  that,  if  the  ethical  freedom  of  the  I  be  a 
fact  (and  without  it  ethics  is  no  fact),  the  question  how 
the  Absolute  Will  can  emancipate  the  human  will  from 
itself  ceases  to  be  unanswerable ;  that  the  finite  I  is  evolved 
from  the  Absolute  I  solely  through  the  mediating  We ;  that 
the  transmission  of  freedom  from  the  Absolute  I  to  the  We 
is  the  same  fact  as  is  its  transmission  from  the  We  to  the 
finite  I ;  that  this  is  simply  the  transmission  of  freedom  as 
part  of  the  generic  and  specific  essence  of  every  I  to  each 
I  as  a  new  specimen ;  that  this  transmission  of  freedom  is 
simply  part  of  the  larger  fact  of  heredity;  and  that  the 
mystery  of  transmissible  freedom  is  neither  more  nor  less 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND   SYSTEM 


291 


than  the  mystery  of  heredity  itself.  It  follows  either  that 
heredity  itself  is  unreal  because  it  is  mysterious,  or  else 
that  freedom  is  real  because  heredity  is  real.  But  evolu- 
tion consists  in  the  double  fact  of  heredity  and  adaptation, 
and  it  is  too  late  in  the  day  to  question  the  reality  of 
either. 

§  250.  In  bringing  to  a  close  this  too  condensed  exposi- 
tion of  the  Syllogistic  Philosophy  (the  fundamental  concep- 
tion of  which  as  Objectivism,  somewhat  vaguely  formed  in 
1859,  lay  in  the  principle  of  the  objectivity  of  relations  and 
its  immediate  consequences,  namely,  the  trichotomy  of  ex- 
istence as  things,  relations,  and  conditions,  and  the  deriva- 
tive trichotomy  of  perception  as  sensuous,  intellectual,  and 
rational,  and  was  already  reduced  to  writing  in  1864  as  the 
germ  of  a  definitely  projected  system  which  should  eman 
cipate  philosophy  from  the  bondage  of  unscientific  Subjec- 
tivism), it  remains  to  develop  the  Absolute  Syllogism  as 
the  solution  of  two  philosophical  problems  of  the  gravest 
importance  —  how  to  effect  a  rational  transition  from  the  I 
to  the  We,  and  how  to  effect  a  rational  transition  from  the 
internal  world  to  the  external  world.  Neither  of  these 
problems,  which  belong  peculiarly  (if  not  exclusively)  to 
modern  philosophy  as  subjectivism,  has  ever  received  a 
logically  sound  or  satisfactory  solution  from  the  subjectivist 
position. 

The  failure  to  solve  the  former  of  the  two  problems  re- 
sulted inevitably  from  the  lack  of  a  scientific  theory  of 
universals  and  the  still  prevalent  infiuence  of  the  Aristote- 
lian Paradox,  which  have  been  sufficiently  dwelt  upon  in 
our  early  chapters.  Its  necessary  consequence,  however, 
was  the  failure  to  form  any  clear  concept  of  the  I  in  the 
We,  and  the  inevitable  result  of  this  was  to  seek  the  origin 
of  self -consciousness  in  the  antithesis  of  I  and  Not-I,  in- 
stead of  the  antithesis  of  I  and  Other-I  as  the  We.  Kow 
the  Not-I  remains  an  absolute  zero  to  thought,  when  it  de- 
rives no  thinkable  content  from  the  I  it  negates.  So  long, 
therefore,  as  the  I  could  not  be  thought  except  as   an 


292 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


"  unknown  a; "  of  an  Impersonal  It,  tlie  attempt  to  derive 
the  origin  of  self-consciousness  from  the  antithesis  of  I  and 
Not-I  was  foredoomed  to  defeat ;  the  concept  of  the  I  being 
itself  a  nullity,  it  was  manifestly  impossible  to  effect  a 
rational  transition  in  philosophy  from  the  I  to  the  We. 

The  second  of  the  two  problems  necessarily  failed  to  be 
solved,  when  the  first  proved  insoluble.  If  there  is  no 
intelligible  I,  there  can  be  no  intelligible  "  internal  world," 
and  a  fortiori  no  intelligible  "  external  world."  A  confused 
and  chaotic  mass  of  "states  of  consciousness,"  without 
intelligible  unity  or  intelligible  organization  as  a  unit- 
universal,  yields  no  solid  pier  for  a  bridge  to  a  still  more 
chaotic  mass  of  "  mere  phaenomena."  One  might  as  well 
seek  to  build  a  bridge  from  one  cloud  to  another. 

"Since  the  acceptance  of  the  Cartesian  cogito  as  the  starting- 
point  of  philosophy,"  remarks  Prof.  Noire  with  admirable  candor 
and  pith,  "  the  chief  pre-occupation  both  of  its  author  and  all  his 
successors  has  been  to  discover  some  explanation  or  excuse  for  the 
assumption  of  a  real  external  world,  when  everything  is  only 
thouglit,  ideal,  a  mode  or  modes  of  consciousness."  ^ 

Excuses,  assumptions,  postulates,  naivete,  common  sense, 
inferences  that  do  not  infer  —  that  is  all  that  modern 
philosophy  as  subjectivism  offers  to  modern  science  as  a 
foundation  on  which  to  build  real  knowledge  of  a  real 
world.  What  wonder  if  scientific  men  sneer  at  "meta- 
physicians "  ?  It  lies  on  the  surface  of  things  that  subjec- 
tivism fails  demonstrably  in  the  effort  to  effect  a  rational 
transition  from  a  real  internal  world  to  a  real  external 
world. 

What  better  has  the  Syllogistic  Philosophy  as  objectiv- 
ism to  offer  ?  Logical  necessity  in  the  Absolute  Syllogism. 
For  the  rational  transition  from  the  I  to  the  We  is  itself 
the  rational  transition  from  the  internal  world  to  the  ex- 
ternal world.    Both  transitions  are  made  at  once  in  the 

1  Sketch  of  the  Development  of  Occidental  Philosophy,  prefixed  to 
Professor  F.  Max  MuUer's  Centenary  Edition  of  Kant's  Critique  of  Pure 
Reason,  L  355. 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


293 


very  first  instant  of  personal  consciousness,  as  self-con- 
sciousness through  race-consciousness  and  race-consciousness 
through  self-consciousness  —  that  is,  as  identity  in  difference 
of  the  "  synthetical  unity  of  apperception  "  and  the  generic 
unity  of  apperception,  Neither  of  these  is  possible  without 
the  other,  as  Kant  unconsciously  proved  when,  endeavoring 
to  conceive  the  Pure  I  as  nothing  but  the  "synthetical 
unity  of  apperception,"  or  "pure  spontaneity"  as  "pure 
synthesis  a  priori^^  he  at  once  lost  the  Pure  I  itself  in  the 
"unknown  xP  The  I  cannot  he  tJiought  tvithout  the  We,  nor 
the  We  witlwut  the  external  world.  For  the  We  is  (1)  real 
unity  of  the  I  and  the  Other-I's,  and  for  that  very  reason 
(2)  real  unity  of  the  I  and  the  Not-I ;  hence  the  We  itself 
is  necessarily  (3)  the  real  identity  in  difference  of  the  I  and 
the  Not-I  as  the  internal  and  the  external  worlds,  that  is, 
as  one  real  world  which  to  every  I  is  partly  internal  and 
partly  external  (r/.  §§  62-72).  This  logical  necessity  of  the 
Other-I  as  middle  term  between  the  I  and  the  Not-I  in  the 
origin  of  personal  consciousness  may  be  made  still  clearer 
by  an  expansion  of  the  Absolute  Syllogism  in  a  changed  form 
as  follows :  — 

L    Known  Internal  World. 

i.  My  present  conscious  state,  as  a  Real  Unit,  is  evolved  from 
the  whole  series  of  my  conscious  and  subconscious  states, 
as  its  Real  Universal :  Evolution  of  the  Specimen  from  its 
Species, 

ii.  The  whole  series  of  my  conscious  and  subconscious  states,  as  a 
Real  Universal,  is  evolved  from  my  I,  as  its  Real  Unity: 
Involution  of  the  Species  in  All  Us  Specimens. 

XL    Known  External  World. 

iii.  My  I,  as  a  Real  Unit,  is  evolved  from  the  We,  as  its  Real  Uni- 
versal: Evolution  of  the  Species  from  its  Genus. 

iv.  The  We,  as  a  Real  Universal,  is  evolved  from  the  Absolute  I, 
as  its  Real  Unity:  Involution  of  the  Genus  in  All  its  Species. 

In  this  exposition  or  explication  of  the  Absolute  Syl- 
logism, the  method  and  system  of  cosmical  Being,  that  is. 
Reality  as  World-Process  or  Nature  as  the  Life  of  the  ethi- 


294 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOrUY 


cal  All-Person,  is  the  determining  ground  of  the  method 
and  system  of  human  Thought,  that  is,  Ideality  as  Reason- 
Process  or  Spirit  as  the  Life  of  the  ethical  human  Person. 
This  is  philosophy  as  objectivism. 

A  few  of  the  innumerable  meanings  easily  developed  with 
great  clearness  in  this  expanded  form  of  the  Absolute  Syl- 
logism require  to  be  specially  noted  before  we  leave  it. 

I.  The  semblance  of  two  independent  worlds,  one  internal 
and  the  other  external,  although  it  has  played  a  great  part 
in  the  history  of  philosophy  as  the  dualism  of  mind  and 
matter  or  body  and  soul,  is  now  seen  to  be  illusory.  There 
is  but  one  world,  self-dependent  as  identity  in  difference  of 
Nature  and  Spirit  in  itself  as  a  whole  and  in  each  and  every 
part  of  that  whole.  There  are  as  many  "  internal  worlds  " 
as  there  are  single  I's,  but  there  is  no  one  internal  world 
common  to  all  of  them :  to  each  I,  its  own  internal  world 
is  unique  and  incommunicable,  just  because  it  is  an  experi- 
ence of  which  only  an  infinitesimal  portion  can  be  shared 
with  another,  a  personal  difference  which  excludes  and  is 
excluded  by  every  other.  This  lies  in  the  necessary  nature 
of  personality  as  individuality.  Nevertheless,  all  these 
countless  internal  worlds  are  as  subtly  and  inseparably 
connected  in  the  one  real  world  as  the  countless  leaves 
are  connected  in  the  one  tree,  or  the  one  tree  in  the  species 
to  which  it  belongs.  The  individuality  of  the  person  is  as 
real  and  necessary  as  that  of  the  leaf,  yet  the  universality 
of  the  World  as  All-Person  is  as  real  and  necessary  as  that 
of  the  tree.  At  either  pole  of  Being  as  the  Infinite  and 
the  Finite  is  personality,  and  this  is  the  one  absolute  cate- 
gory which  includes  all  others  known  to  us ;  whatever 
unsuspected  reaches  of  Being  may  lie  beyond  our  knowl- 
edge, every  higher  includes,  not  excludes,  every  lower, 
and  the  Absolute  I,  whatever  else  it  may  be  besides,  must 
remain  what  we  know  it  is,  the  Ethical  All-Person.  Syllo- 
gistic Philosophy  is  indeed  pantheism,  but,  with  personality 
as  the  supreme  reality  at  either  extreme,  it  cannot  be  con- 
founded with  what  commonly  passes  by  that  name. 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


205 


II.  The  law  of  unit-universals  is  exemplified  in  this 
table  with  the  utmost  clearness.  The  I,  as  the  principle 
and  the  fact  of  personal  identity,  appears  in  it  as  a  unit- 
universal,  a  species  or  universal  in  all  its  specimens  or 
units.  But  the  unit  as  such  inheres  in  the  universal  as 
such,  and  not  vice  versa  as  the  Aristotelian  Paradox  requires 
(cf.  Chapter  VI)  ;  the  unit  inheres  in  its  universal,  but  the 
universal  inheres  in  all  its  units  together,  not  wholly  in  any 
one  of  them  alone.  In  the  first  half  of  the  table,  the  finite 
I  stands  as  the  real  universal  of  all  its  conscious  states,  but 
in  the  second  half  it  stands  as  the  real  unit  in  the  We,  as 
its  higher  universal ;  and  in  both  halves  together  it  stands 
as  a  real  unit-universal  in  a  higher  unit-universal,  that  is, 
as  a  specimen  in  its  species.  It  is  precisely  in  this  rela- 
tion that  the  logical  necessity  of  the  two  transitions  con- 
sists—  a  necessity  as  absolute  as  that  of  the  Apriori  of 
Being  which  determines  it. 

III.  The  method  of  absolute  syllogistic  as  evolution 
through  involution  is  no  less  clearly  exemplified  in  this 
table.  Every  specimen  is  evolved  from  its  own  species; 
every  species  is  involved  in  all  its  own  specimens  as  a 
whole,  and  in  each  of  them  as  a  part.  The  same  relation 
holds  when  the  species  becomes  a  specimen  to  its  own 
genus,  and  the  genus  a  higher  species  to  all  its  own  species 
as  its  own  specimens.  As  Nageli  saw  in  18G5  (see  §  242), 
this  reformation  of  the  Aristotelian  Paradox  lay  implicit 
in  the  Darwinian  revolution.  The  logical  necessity  of  the 
first  half  of  the  table,  as  relation  of  specimen  and  species, 
is  identical  with  that  of  the  second,  as  relation  of  spe- 
cies and  genus :  the  two  together  constitute  the  syllogistic 
relation  of  specimen,  species,  and  genus,  as  more  directly 
shown  in  the  Absolute  Syllogism  (</.  §  249)  and  in  the 
constitutive  principle  of  absolute  logic  itself  (rf.  §  240). 
In  this  logical  linkage  of  the  two  halves  of  the  present 
table  lies  the  logical  necessity  of  the  solution  which  objec- 
tivism effects,  Imt  which  subjectivism  has  certainly  never 
yet   effected,   with  regard  to   the  two  problems   already 


296 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


297 


mentioned.  The  rationality  of  the  transitions  from  the 
I  to  the  We  and  from  the  internal  world  to  the  external 
world  cannot  be  successfully  impugned  without  overthrow- 
ing the  ground-principle  of  absolute  logic,  that  whatever 
is  evolved  as  consequent  must  be  involved  as  antecedent. 
With  this  conviction,  I  now  leave  the  Syllogistic  Philos- 
ophy to  stand  by  its  own  merits  or  fall  by  its  own  demerits, 
wishing  it  no  more  success  than  it  deserves  to  win  by  its 
intrinsic  truth,  but  hoping  that  my  fellow-men  will  value 
at  its  true  worth  what  truth  soever  it  may  contain.  My 
work  of  forty-four  years  is  done,  and  I  commit  its  destinies 
to  the  Master  of  Life,  whom  I  have  resolutely  but  rever- 
ently sought  to  know  by  using  the  free  reason  which  is  his 
supreme  gift  to  man. 

NoNQUiTT,  Mass.,  Sept.  29,  1903. 


TABLE  VI 

Synopsis  of  Syllogistic  Philosophy. 

I.   Ontology:  The  Syllogism  of  Being. 

TRICHOTOMY  OP  EXISTENCE  :    SPECIMENS,   SPECIES,   GENERA. 

Things  in  Kinds :  Generic,  Specific,  and  Reific  Essence  in  Substance  : 

Immanent  Relational  Constitution. 
Evolution  through  Involution  as  Cosmical  Process:  Absolute  Logic  as 

Apriori  of  Being. 
i.   Species,  or  Kinds  in  Themselves,  are  evolved  from  Genera,  or 

Higher  Kinds  in  Themselves. 
ii.   Specimens,  or  Things  in  Themselves,  are  evolved  from  Species, 

or  Kinds  in  Themselves.     Therefore  — 
iii.  Specimens  are  evolved  from  Genera,  as  New  Individual  Things 
in  Universal  Kinds. 

IL   Epistkmology  :  The  Syllogism  of  Knowing. 

TRICHOTOMY   OF   KNOWLEDGE:   PERCEPTS,  CONCEPTS,    IDEAS. 

Knowledge  of  Things  in  Kinds :  Generic,  Specific,  and  Reific  Essence 

in  Cognition:  Immanent  Relational  Constitution. 
Evolution  through  Involution  as  Cognitive  Process:  Absolute  Logic  as 

Apriori  of  Truth. 
i.    Concepts,  or  Comprehensions  of  Species,  are  evolved  from 

Ideas,  or  Comprehensions  of  Genera. 
ii.   Percepts,  or  Apprehensions  of   Specimens,  are  evolved  from 

Concepts,  or  Comprehensions  of  Species.     Therefore  — 
iii.   Percepts  are  evolved  from  Ideas,  as  Percept-Concepts  or  New 
Cognitions  of  Things  and  Kinds  in  Themselves. 


m.  Ethics:  The  Syllogism  of  Doing. 

TRICHOTOMY   OF   PRAXIS:   DEEDS,   PURPOSES,    IDEALS. 

Good  Actions  as  Things  in  Kinds :  Generic,  Specific,  and  Reific  Es- 
sence in  Conduct :  Immanent  Relational  Constitution. 


298 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  rHILOSOPHY 


1. 


11. 


111. 


ii.    Minor : 


Evolution  through  Involution  as  Ethical  Process :  A  hsolute  Logic  as 

Apriori  of  Right. 
Good  Purposes,   or  Free  Formation   of   Right  Means,   are 

evolved  from  Good  Ideals,  or  Cognitions  of  Right  Ends. 
Good  Deeds,  or  Realized  Right  Ends,  are  evolved  from  Good 
Purposes,  or  Free  Formations  of  Right  Means.     Therefore  — 
Good  Deeds  are  evolved  from  Good  Ideals,  as  New  Individual 
Things  in  Universal  Kinds. 

IV.  Philosophy:  The  Syllogism  of  Syllogisms. 

SYNTHETIC   UNITY   OF  APPERCEPTION  :    I   AM   THROUGH   MY    KNOWING  IN 

MY    DOING  :    I   AM    MY   CHARACTER. 

I.    Absolute  Principle  of  Logic:   Whatever  is  Evolved  as  Conse- 
quent must  be  Involved  as  Antecedent. 
i.    Major:  the  Syllogism  of  Being,  as  Realized  Principle,  Ground, 
and  Norm  of  Absolute  Logic. 

'the  Syllogism  of  Knowing  is  evolved  from  the 

Syllogism  of  Being, 
the  Syllogism  of  Doing  is  evolved  from  the  Syl- 
logism of  Knowing, 
therefore,   the   Syllogism  of  Doing  is  evolved 
.    from  the  Syllogism  of  Being, 
^the  Syllogism  of  Knowing  is  involved  in  the 

Syllogism  of  Being, 
the  Syllogism  of  Doing  is  involved  in  the  Syllo- 
gism of  Knowing, 
therefore,  the  Syllogism  of  Doing  is  involved  in 
*.    the  Syllogism  of  Being. 
II.    Tfiat  is:  Philosophy  is  Scientific  Realism^  or  Identity  in  Differ. 

ence  of  Ontology ^  Epistemology,  and  Ethics. 
i.    Whatever   is  evolved   as    Consequent   must   be    involved   as 

Antecedent. 
ii.   The  Syllogism  of  Doing  is  evolved  as  Consequent  from  the 

Syllojjjism  of  Being, 
iii.   Therefore,  the  Syllogism  of  Doing  is  involved  in  the  Syllogism 

of  Being  as  Antecedent. 
III.    That  is:  Philosophy  is  Scientific  Tlirism^  or  Identity  in  Differ- 
ence of  Ileality  and  Ideality. 
Being,  Knowing,  and  Doing  are  Power,  Wisdom,  and  (loodness, 
or  Wholeness  and  Holiness  as  Character  of  the  Absolute  I. 


iii.    Conclusion:  - 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM  299 


V.   Religion:  The  Absolute  Syllogism. 

GENERIC    UNITY   OP   APPKUCLPTION  :   I   AM  THROUGH  MAN  IN  GOD:   LOVE 

TO   GOD   IN   MAN    IS   MY    END. 

i.    Wk  Aue  in  I  AM. 
ii.    I  Am  in  Wk  Are. 
iii.    Therefore,  I  am  in  I  AM. 


300 


THE   SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM  301 


TABLE   VII 

Ontology  as  Oround  of  Epistemology. 

Inseparable    Objective    Reality    of    Things,    Relations, 

Conditions. 

OBJECTIVE  inference  A8  THE  COURSE  OF  NATURE:  LOGICAL  DETER- 
MINATION OF  THE  REAL  IN  ITSELF. 


I. 


1. 


U. 


111. 


n. 

1. 


II. 


111. 


(«) 


Things  in  Kinds :  Law  of  Unit-  Universals :  Syllogistic  Genesis 
of  Objects  of  Knowledge :  Apriori  of  Being, 
Genera:    Major  Term  in  the  Syllogism  of   Being:    Law  of 

Generification. 
Species:  Middle  Term  in  the  Syllogism  of  Being:  Law  of 

Specification. 
Specimens :  Minor  Term  in  the  Syllogism  of  Being :  Law  of 

Individuation. 
Relations  of  Things  in  Kinds :  Necessary  Objectivity  of  Relations. 
Contingent  Relations:  Aposteriori  of  Being  {ivbixrrai  oXXcof 

Necessary  Relations:   Apriori  of  Being  {ovk  ivhix^rai  SKKm 

Real  Relations  :  Being  as  One  in  Many  (to  ov  jj  hv  koI  to  tovt^ 
xmapxovra  Kaff  avTcJ). 


Cause  and  Effect :  Energy^ 
as  Mechanical  Causality 


Q>) 


(0 

in. 


End  and  Means :  Reason  as 
Organic  Finality 


Ideal  and  Deed :  Character 
as  Personal  Ethicality 


\  =  { 


Real  Principles  of  the  Ulti- 
mate Real  Forms  of  Be- 
ing as  Known  —  One  in 
Many  as  Mechanism  of 
Mechanisms,  Organism  of 
Organisms,  Person  of  Per- 
sons, in  the  All-Person 
—  Identity  in  Difference 
of  all  Si^ecimens,  Species, 
Genera,  in  the  Genus  Gen- 

'    erum  or  Absolute  I. 


1. 


Unconditioned  Conditions  of  Related  Things :  Necessary  Objec- 
tivity of  Conditions. 
Space  and  Time :  Possibility  of  Extension,  Protension,  —  Con- 
tinuity, Discontinuity,  —  Permanence,  Change. 


ii.   Substance:  Being  as  Acting,  Causal  Energy,  Will   as   Self- 

Particularization :  Evolution, 
iii.    Essence :  Being  as  Relating,  Formative  Reason,  Thought  as 

Self-Universalization :  Involution, 
iv.   Process :  Being  as   Acting  and  Relating,  Reason-Energy  as 

Motion,  Evolution  through  Involution  :  Method  of  Nature. 
V.    Reality :  Identity  in  Difference  of  Substance  and  Essence  and 
Process  in  Space  and  Time :  God. 


302 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC   PHILOSOPHY 


i.   Perceptivity  as 


ii.    Understanding  as 


TABLE  VIII 
Epistemology  as  Grounded  in  Ontology. 

Determination  of   Cognitive   Relations  by  Ontological 

Relations. 

SUBJECTIVE    inference   AS   THE   COURSE   OP   MIND*.    LOGICAL   IDEALIZA- 
TION  OP   THE   REAL. 

I.   Elements  of  Intelligence:  True  Percepts,  True  Concepts,  True 

Ideas:  Apriori  of  Truth, 
/Sensuous:   Appreliensions  of   Real   Speci- 
mens as  Single  Things. 
Intellectual :  Apprehensions  of  Real  Speci- 
mens as  Single  Relations. 
Rational:    Apprehensions  of    Real    Speci- 
mens as  Single  Conditions. 
/Perceptive:    Intellections   of   Single   Rela- 
tions as  Specimens  or  Real  Units. 
Conceptive :  Intellections  of  Kinds  of  Rela- 
tions as  Species  or  Real  Universals. 
Abstractive:     Intellections    of    Relational 
Species   as   Artificial   or   Abstract   Uni- 
versals. 
"•perceptive :  Comprehensions  of  Single  Con- 
ditions of  Specimens,  Species,   Genera: 
Apriori  of  Being. 
Logical :   Comprehensions  as  Inferences  of 
Conclusions   from    Premises:    Evolution 
of  New  Cognitions. 
Ethical:  Comprehensions  as  Inventions  of 
Means  to  Ends :  Involution  of  New  Pur- 
poses. 
IT.    Cognitive  Process'^ determined  hy  Cosmical  Process:  Evolution 

through  Involution  as  Intelligence :  Scientific  Method. 
i.    Rational  Comprehension  of  Universals  as  Principles  or  Laws, 
ii.   Empirical   Apprehension   of   Units   as   Instances,  Events,  or 

Facts, 
iii.    Subsumption  through  Mediation  :   Deduction  through  Induc- 
tion: Hypothesis  as  Tentative  Conclusion:  Verification  of 
Reason  by  Experience  as  Cognition. 


iii.   Reason  as 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


303 


III.    Cognitive  Product:  Self-Involving  and  Self-Evolving  Knowledge 

of  the  Cosmos  hy  Man :  Science. 
i.   Individual  Discovery  of  Cosmical  Truth  by  the  Competent 

Investigator. 
ii.   Universal  Verification  of  Individual  Discovery  by  the  Con- 
sensus of  the  Competent. 
iii.   Logical  Development  of  the  Organism  of  Universal  Science 
into  Syllogistic  Philosophy. 


304 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND  SYSTEM 


305 


TABLE  IX 

Ethics  aa  Orounded  in  Epiatemology. 

Determination   of  Ontological   Relations  by  Cognitive 

Relations. 

subjectiye-objectitb  inference  as  the  course  of  spirit  :  logical 

realization  of  the  ideal. 

I.    Elements  of  Morality:    Right  Ideals^  Right  Purposes^  Right 

Deeds :  Apriori  of  Right. 
1.   Moral  Obligation:  Rational  Comprehension  of  the  Good  as 

Cosmical  Moral  Law,  End,  and  Order, 
ii.   Moral  Freedom:    Rational   Formation  of  Purposes  in  Free 

Conformity  to  Moral  Law  as  the  Ought, 
iii.   Moral  Action:    Volitional  Fulfilment  of   Free    Purposes  in 

Deeds  as  New  Realizations  of  the  Good, 
n.    Ethical  Process  determined   by   Cognitive  Process:    Evolution 

through  Involution  as   Virtue:    Spiritual  Method. 
i.    Cosmical  Determination  of  the  Good  as  Necessary  Ideal,  End, 

or  Genus:  Objective  Major  Pi*emise. 
ii.   Personal  Determination  of  the  Good  as  Free  Purpose,  Means, 

or  Species :  Subjective  Minor  Premise, 
iii.   Cosmical-Personal  Determination  of  the  Good  as  Deed,  Realized 
End,  or  New  Specimen :  Objective-Subjective  Conclusion. 

III.  Ethical  Judgment:    Double  Standard  of  Worth  or  the  Ethical 

Evaluation  of  Conduct:    Objective  and  Subjective  Right. 
i.    Absolute  Standard :  Agreement  of  Deed  with  Cosmical  Moral 

Order :  Objective  Right  in  the  Result. 
ii.    Relative  Standard:  Agreement  of  Deed  with  Personal  Ideal 

of  the  Doer:    Subjective  Right  in  the  Purpose. 

IV.  Ethical  Product:    Personality  as  Purpose- Involving  and  Deed- 

Evolving  Good  Character:  Freedom  in  Necessity. 
i.   Necessary  Idealization  of  the  Real  in  Knowing, 
ii.   Free  Realization  of  the  Ideal  in  Doing. 

iii.   Growth  of  the  Good  Character  in  Being,  as  Alternating  Process 
or  Self-Perpetuating  Ethical  Life. 
V.    Ethical  Destiny :  Desert  of  Immortality  by  the  Good  Character. 
i.   In  a  Good  Universe,  whatever  freely  perpetuates  the  Good  de- 
serves to  be  itself  perpetual. 


ii.   The  Good  Character  freely  perpetuates  the  Good, 
iii.   Therefore,  in  a  Good  Universe,  the  Good  Character  deserves 

to  be  itself  perpetual. 
VI.    Ethical  Necessity  as  Rational   Ground  of  the   Expectation  of 

Immortality. 
i.   In  a  Good  Universe,  whatever  ought  to  be  will  be. 
ii.   The  Grood  Character  ought  to  be  immortal, 
iii.   Therefore,  in  a  Good  Universe,  the  Good  Character  will  be 
immortal. 


VOL.  11.  —  20 


306 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  rHILOSOPHY 


TABLE   X 

Philosophy  as  Grounded  in  Absolute  Syllogistic. 

Evolution    through     Involution:     Course    of    Nature 
THROUGH  Course  of  Mind  as  Course  of  Spirit. 

BTLLOGISM  OF   BEING   AS  THE   BECOMING    OF   GOOD  :   BEING   AND   BECOM- 
ING. OF  GOOD   AS   THE   ABSOLUTE    I. 

identity    in    DIFFERENCE    OF    NATURE     AND     SPIRIT:     REAL    GOOD    AB 

REAL  GOD. 


I. 
1. 

«  • 

U. 

•  •   a 

111. 
II. 
I. 

•  • 

11. 

•  •  • 

111. 
III. 
1. 

•  • 

11. 

•  •  • 

111. 


Cosmical  Process  as   Ethical   Process:    Evolving  Syllogisfn  of 

Being  as  Involved  Syllogism  of  Doing. 
Syllogistic  as  the  Method  of  Mind  is  involved  in  the  Method 
of  Nature. 

Syllogistic  as  the  Method  of  Spirit  is  involved  in  the  Method 
of  Mind. 

Therefore,  Syllogistic  as  the  Method  of  Spirit  is  involved  in 

the  Method  of  Nature. 
Cosmical  End  as   Self-Involving  Ethical   End:    Good  as  the 

Divine  Ideal. 
Truth,  or  the  End  of  Knowing,  is  involved  in  the  End  of 
Being. 

Good,  or  the  End  of  Doing,  is  involved  in  Truth,  or  the  End 
of  Knowing. 

Therefore,  Good,  or  the  End  of  Doing,  is  involved  in  the  End 
of  Being. 

Cosmical  End  as  Self-Evolving  Ethical  End :  Good  as  the  Divine 

Character  and  Deed. 
Absolute    Syllogistic,   or    Evolution    through    Involution   as 

Ethical  Process,  is  the  Life  of  the  Cosmos. 
The  Life  of  the  Good  I  is  Evolution  through  Involution  as 

Ethical  Process. 
Therefore,  the  Life  of  the  Good  I  is  the  Life  of  the  Cosmos. 


PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  AND   SYSTEM  307 

rV.   Macrocosm  and  Microcosm :  Man  the  Measure  of  the  Universe : 
Personality  the  A  cme  of  Known  Being. 
i.   Evolution  through  Involution  as  Ethical  Process  is  Person  as 
such. 

it.   Man  in  the  Cosmos  is  Imperfect  Ethical  Process  in  Perfect 

All-Ethical  l^rocess. 
iii.   Therefore,  Man  in  the  Cosmos  is  Imperfect  Person  in  Perfect 

All-Person. 


308 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILUSOrHY 


TABLE  XI 

Philosophy  aa  Qroimd  of  Absolute  Religion. 

Identity  in  Diffekence  of  the  Internal  and  External 

WORLDP. 

THE   I   IN  THE   WE    IN  THE   ABSOLUTE   I :     I    AM    BECAUSE  WE  ARE,  AND 

WE   ARE    BECAUSE   I  AM. 


«l 


1. 


U. 


m. 


IV. 


I.    Known  Internal  World. 

My  present  conscious  state,  as  a  Real  Unit,  is  evolved  from  the 
whole  series  of  my  conscious  and  subconscious  states,  as  its 
Real  Universal.  (Empirical  particularity  of  my  personal 
consciousness  in  succession  of  single  j>erceptions :  "  I  Know 
that  I  Know  This  Here  and  Now.") 

The  whole  series  of  my  conscious  and  subconscious  states,  as 
a  Real  Universal,  is  evolved  from  my  I,  as  its  Real  Unity. 
(Rational   Universality   of   my  personal   consciousness   in 
synthetic  unity  of  apperception:  "I  Know  that  I  Am.*') 
II.    Known  External   World. 

My  I,  as  a  Real  Unit,  is  evolved  from  the  We,  as  its  Real 
Universal.  (Empirical  particularity  of  my  personal  con- 
sciousness in  my  race-consciousness,  or  specific  unity  of 
apperception:   "I  Know  that  We  Are.*') 

The  We,  as  a  Real  Universal,  is  evolved  from  the  Absolute  I, 
as  its  Real  Unity.  (Rational  universality  of  my  personal 
consciousness  through  my  race-consciousness  in  my  God- 
consciousness,  or  generic  unity  of  apperception :  "  I  Know 
that  I  AM.") 


APPENDIX 


FUNDAMENTAL  PHILOSOPHEMES  OF  THE 

SCIENTIFIC  METHOD 


BOOK  I 

SCIENTIFIC  REALISM.  REALITY  OF  THE  LT^IVERSAL  AS 
GENUS,  CONCEPT,  AND  WORD:  ORGANIC  THEORY 
OF   UNIVERSALS. 

Definition.  Philosophy  is  World-Science,  or  the  Self- Comprehen- 
sion of  Universal  Human  Reason  in  Universal  Divine  Reason. 

Philos.  I.  The  Beginning-point  or  Given  Fact  of  Philosophy  is 
the  Reality  or  Real  Existence  of  Human  Knowledge,  as  Jin  Un- 
organized Manifold ;  and  its  Goal  or  Rational  End  is  the  Com- 
prehension of  Human  Knowledge  as  an  Organized  Unity. 

Philos.  II.  The  Reality  of  Human  Knowledge  involves  the  Three- 
fold Reality  of  Universals,  as  its  Constituent  Molecules  :  (1)  Ob- 
jective Reality  in  the  Real  Genus,  or  Universal  of  the  First 
Power ;  (2)  Subjective  Reality  in  the  Ideal  Concept,  or  Univer- 
sal  of  the  Second  Power ;  and  (3)  Objective-Subjective  Reality 
in  the  Real-Ideal  Word,  or  Universal  of  the  Third  Power. 

Philos.  III.  The  Threefold  Reality  of  Universals  involves  the 
Threefold  Universality  of  Human  Knowledge:  (1)  Objective 
Universality  in  the  Genus  ;  (2)  Subjective  Universality  in  the 
Concept;    and  (3)    Objective-Subjective    Universality  in    the 

Word. 

Philos.  IV.  The  Threefold  Universality  of  Human  Knowledge  in- 
volves  its  Relativity,  or  the  necessary,  yet  partial,  Essential 
Identity  of  Immanent  Relational  Constitution  in  the  Genus,  the 
Concept,  and  the  Word. 

Philos.  V.  The  Relativity  of  Human  Knowledge  involves  the 
Objectivity  of  Relations,  or  the  Reality  of  Immanent  Relational 
Constitution  as  the  Intelligible  Essence  of  the  Real  Genus  in 
Itself,  and  therefore  as  the  Real  Object  of  Human  Knowledge. 

Philos.  VI.  The  Objectivity  of  Relations  involves  the  Validity  of 
the  Scientific  Method,  as  the  only  possible  Learning-Process  by 
which  Knowledge  of  the  Real  Genus  can  be  Acquired. 


312 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


PhUos.  VII.    The    Scientific    Method    involves    three    Essential 
Moments :  — 

i.   Observation :  Discovery  of  Real  Genera  in  Real  Things. 

ii.   Hypothesis :  Creation  of  Ideal  Generalizations  in  Antici- 
pation of  Real  Genera. 

iii.  Experimental  Verification :  Discovery  of  Identity  in  Im- 
manent Relational  Constitution  between  Real  Genera  and  Ideal 
Generalizations. 
Philos.  VIIL  The  Organic  Theory  of  Unit-Universals,  or  Imma- 
nent Law  of  the  Scientific  Method,  is  the  Atomic  Theory  of 
Philosophy,  and  predetermines  its  Divisions.  The  principle  of 
the  Genus  as  the  Universal  of  Existence  involves  Constructive 
Realism,  or  the  Theory  of  Being ;  the  principle  of  the  Concept 
as  the  Universal  of  Thought  involves  Critical  Realism,  or  the 
Theory  of  Knowing ;  and  the  principle  of  the  Word  as  the  Uni- 
versal of  Speech  involves  Ethical  Realism,  or  the  Theory  of 
Doing.  The  organic  union  of  these  three  theories  in  Free  Re- 
ligion is  Religious  Realism,  or  the  Theory  of  Living. 


BOOK  II 

CONSTRUCTIVE  REALISM.    NOUMENAL  REALITY  OF  THE 
GENUS  IN  ITSELF :  ORGANIC  THEORY  OF  BEING. 

Philos.  IX.  The  Genus  as  Class  involves  the  Genus  as  Whole; 
the  Genus  as  Whole  involves  the  Genus  as  Kind ;  and  the  Genus 
as  Kind  involves  the  Genus  as  Organism. 

i.  The  Genus  is  at  once  that  Real  Similarity  in  Many  Mem- 
bers which  constitutes  them  One  Class,  and  that  Real  Dis- 
similarity in  One  Class  which  constitutes  it  Many  Members. 

ii.  The  Genus  is  at  once  that  Real  Totality  in  Many  Parts 
which  constitutes  them  One  Whole,  and  that  Real  Division  in 
One  Whole  which  constitutes  it  Many  Parts. 

iii.  The  Genus  is  at  once  that  Real  Identity  in  Many  Things 
which  constitutes  them  One  Kind,  and  that  Real  Difference  in 
One  Kind  which  constitutes  it  Many  Things. 

iv.  The  Genus  is  at  once  that  Real  Unity  in  Many  Organs 
which  constitutes  them  One  Organism,  and  that  Real  Plurality 
in  One  Organism  which  constitutes  it  Many  Organs. 

V.  Every  Genus  originates  through  the  Double  Process  of  Indi- 
viduation, or  the  Evolution  of  Many  Units  as  each  the  Intensive 


FUNDAMENTAL  PHILOSOPHEMES 


313 


Organization  of  Many  Universals,  and  Generification,  or  the  In- 
volution of  One  Universal  as  the  Extensive  Organization  of 
Many  Units ;  and  this  Double  Process  involves  the  Double  Princi- 
ple of  the  Interpenetration  and  the  Combination  of  Universals. 

vi.  Every  Genus  is  at  once  an  Organ  to  a  superior  Organism, 
and  an  Organism  to  inferior  Organs. 

vii.  The  Summum  GenuSy  or  Universe  of  Being,  is  identical  with 
the  Infima  Species^  or  All  Units  of  Being.  That  is,  the  One  and 
the  Many  are  identical  as  Unity,  Plurality,  and  Totality  in  the 
Immanent  Relational  Constitution  of  Infinite  Being  as  One  Ab- 
solute Organism  —  the  Genus  Generum  as  Summum  Individuum. 

viii.  In  every  Genus,  the  Reality  of  the  Thing  is  the  Real 
Union  in  Substance  of  One  Class  Essence  with  One  Individual 
Difference,  and  the  Reality  of  the  Kind  is  the  Real  Union  in 
Substance  of  One  Class  Essence  with  Many  Individual  Differ- 
ences and  One  Generic  Difference.  Hence,  of  necessity,  the 
Thing  involves,  explains,  and  reveals  the  Kind,  and  the  Kind 
involves,  explains,  and  reveals  the  Thing,  through  the  Class 
Essence  which  is  common  to  Both.  This  is  the  Syllogism  of 
Being,  mediating  the  Genus  and  the  Specimen  by  the  Species. 
ix.  In  the  Summum  Genus^  or  Infinite  Being,  the  Unit  reveals 
the  Universe,  and  the  Universe  reveals  the  Unit,  through  the 
Essential  Nature  which  is  common  to  Both. 

X.  The  Organic  Constitution  of  the  Genus,  as  a  Noumenon  or 
Intelligible  Real  Essence,  is  at  once  the  absolute  Ground  of  a 
Real  World-Order  and  the  absolute  Condition  of  a  Possible 
World-Science.  As  Ground  of  a  Real  World-Order,  it  is  the 
Law  of  Unit-Universals  as  the  Law  of  the  Necessary  Unity  of 
the  Universe ;  as  Condition  of  a  Possible  World-Science,  it  is  the 
Law  of  the  Necessary  Intelligibility  of  the  Universe  —  the  Law 
of  the  Necessary  Self-Revelation  of  Being  to  Thought  in  Nature. 
That  is,  the  Reality  of  a  World-Order  constitutes  in  itself  the 
Possibility  of  a  World-Science. 

Philos.  X.  The  Genus  as  Organism  involves  the  Universality  of  the 
Organic  Constitution  as  the  Noumenal  Form  of  all  Real  Existence. 

Philos.  XI.  The  Universality  of  the  Organic  Constitution  as  the 
Noumenal  Form  of  all  Real  Existence  involves  the  Univer- 
sality of  the  Organic  Idea  as  the  Noumenal  Form  of  all  Real 
Knowledge. 

Philos.  XII.  The  Universality  of  the  Organic  Constitution  and 
the  Universality  of  the  Organic  Idea  involve  the  Essential  Iden- 


eS14 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


tity  in  Difference  of  the  Form  of  Existence  and  the  Fonn  of 
Knowledge. 

Pljilos.  XIII.  The  Essential  Identity  in  Difference  of  the  Form 
of  Existence  and  the  Form  of  Knowledge  involves  the  still 
deeper  Identity  in  Difference  of  Being  and  Thought  in  the  Infi- 
nite Organism  which,  as  Word,  is  Nature,  and,  as  Genus  or 
Meaning,  is  Spirit. 

Philos.  XIV.  The  Identity  in  Difference  of  Being  and  Thought 
in  the  Infinite  Organism  involves  the  Identity  in  Difference  of 
the  Method  of  Being  and  the  Method  of  Thought,  as  One  Or- 
ganic or  Syllogistic  Life-Process  by  which  One  Self-Thinking 
Energy  eternally  organizes  itself  throughout  One  Space  and  One 
Time  as  One  Substance  and  One  Essence  in  One  Universe,  that 
is,  as  One  Spirit. 

Philos.  XV.  The  Identity  in  Difference  of  the  Method  of  Being 
and  the  Method  of  Thought  involves:  (1)  the  Spirituality  of 
Substance,  or  the  principle  that  All  Being  is  Thought ;  (2)  the 
Substantiality  of  Spirit,  or  the  principle  that  All  Thought  is 
Being;  and  (3)  the  Identity  in  Difference  of  Spirituality  and 
Substantiality  in  Personality,  or  the  principle  that  All  Being  and 
All  Thought  can  be  one  only  in  One  Infinite  Person. 

Pliilos.  XVI.  The  Identity  in  Difference  of  All  Being  and  All 
Thought  in  One  Infinite  Person  involves :  (1)  the  Universality 
of  the  Personal  Constitution  as  the  Noumenal  Ground-Form  of 
All  Being ;  and  (2)  the  Universality  of  the  Personal  Idea  as  the 
Noumenal  Ground-Form  of  All  Thought. 

Philos.  XVII.  The  Universality  of  the  Personal  Constitution  and 
Personal  Idea  as  the  Noumenal  Ground-Forms  of  All  Being  and 
All  Thought  involves  the  Universality  of  the  Self-Creative  Pro- 
cess, as  the  Divine  Personal  Life  of  the  Universe :  (1)  as  Eternal 
Evolution  of  Nature  in  Spirit,  or  of  the  Many  in  the  One  ;  and 
(2)  as  Paternal  Involution  of  Spirit  in  Nature,  or  of  the  One  in 
the  Many. 

Philos.  XVIII.  The  Eternal  Evolution  of  Nature  in  Spirit  in- 
volves the  Created  Multiplicity  of  the  Universe,  as  three  great 
Genera,  Categories,  or  Categorical  Types  of  Real  Being  :  (1)  the 
Machine,  of  which  the  distinctive  real  principle  is  Mechanical 
Causality  (nexus  ejfectirus) ;  (2)  the  Organism,  of  which  the  dis- 
tinctive real  principle  is  Organic  Finality  {nexus  Jinalis)  ;  and 
{^)  the  Person,  of  which  the  distinctive  real  principle  is  Active 
Self -Consciousness  as  Personal  Ethicality  (nexus  ethicus). 


FUNDAMENTAL  PHD^OSOPHEMES 


315 


Philos.  XIX.     The  Machine  involves  the  Organism,  and  the  Or- 
ganism involves  the  Person. 

i.  The  Machine  is  an  Artificial  Organ  of  the  Natural  Organ- 
ism; and  the  Organism  is  a  Self -Making  and  Self- Working 
Natural  Machine. 

ii.  The  Machine  and  the  Organism  are  both  Systems  of  Ends 
and  Means ;  and  the  Person  is  the  Sole  Creator  of  Ends  and 
Means,  artificially  in  the  Machine  and  naturally  in  the  Organism. 

iii.  All  Real  Types  are  One  in  the  Person.  This  is  the  Law 
of  the  Correlation  of  Real  Types. 
Philos.  XX.  The  Eternal  Involution  of  Spirit  in  Nature  involves 
the  Uncreated  Unity  of  the  Universe  as  Real  Summum  Genus  : 
(1)  as  Infinite  Machine,  or  Universal  Cause  and  Effect  in  Mo- 
tion ;  (2)  as  Infinite  Organism,  or  Universal  End  and  Means  in 
Life ;  and  (3)  as  Infinite  Person,  or  Universal  Real  and  Ideal 
in  Action. 
Philos.  XXI.  Mechanical  Causality  involves  Organic  Finality, 
and  Organic  Finality  involves  Personal  Ethicality. 

i.  The  Efficient  or  ** Out-Making"  Cause  contains  within 
itself  the  Preconceived  End;  the  Effect  or  "Out-Made"  Result 
contains  within  itself  the  Realized  End ;  and  the  Causal  Nexus 
is  itself  the  Energetic  Realizing  End,  or  Real  Union  of  End  and 
Energy  in  Effort.  Therefore,  the  Principle  of  Efficient  or  Me- 
chanical Causality  contains  within  itself  the  Principle  of  Organic 
Finality. 

ii.  The  Immanent  Organic  End  is  Self-Evolution  or  Ethical 
Egoism;  the  Exient  Organic  End  is  Self -Devotion  or  Ethical  Al- 
truism ;  and  the  Total  Organic  End  is  Identity  in  Difference  of 
Ethical  Egoism  and  Ethical  Altruism  as  Character.  The  lower 
Finite  Organism  realizes  its  Character,  of  which  Nature  is  con- 
scious, in  Ethical  Unconsciousness  ;  the  higher  Finite  Organism 
realizes  its  Character  in  Ethical  Consciousness  of  Limited  Free- 
dom ;  the  Infinite  Organism  of  Nature  realizes  its  Character  in 
Ethical  Consciousness  of  Illimitable  Freedom.  Therefore,  the 
principle  of  Organic  Finality  contains  within  itself  the  principle 
of  Freedom,  Self-Determi  nation,  or  Personal  Ethicality. 

iii.   All  Real  Principles  are  One  in  Personality.     This  is  the 
Law  of  the  Correlation  of  Real  Principles. 
Philos.  XXII.     The  three  Categorical  Types  of  all  known  Finite 
Being  are  related  to  Infinite  Being  as  Microcosm  to  Macrocosm 
or  Ectype  to  Archetype. 


316 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


Philos.  XXIII.  In  the  Order  of  the  External  Self-Creative  Pro- 
cess, Nature  successively  evolves  (1)  Finite  Machines,  (2)  Finite 
Organisms,  and  (3)  Finite  Persons,  and  Spirit  eternally  involves 
(1)  Infinite  Person,  (2)  Infinite  Organism,  and  (3)  Infinite 
Machine;  and  the  Order  of  Involution  in  Spirit  is  converse, 
complement,  and  explanation  to  the   Order  of  Evolution   in 

Nature. 
Philos.  XXIV.     Constructive  Realism  culminates  in  the  Syllogism 
of  Knowledge,  Scientific  World-Concept,  or  Philosophic  Idea  of 
God,  as  follows :  — 

Mechanical  Causality,  or  the  Law  of  Motion,  Organic  Final- 
ity, or  the  Law  of  Life,  and  Personal  Ethicality,  or  the  Law  of 
Spirit,  —  the  three  eternal  and  all-pervasive  Real  Principles  by 
which  the  whole  known  World  exists,  —  are  at  bottom  One  in 
the  Real  Principle  of  Omnipresent  Self-Conscious  Reason-Energy 
or  Absolute  Personality,  and  constitute  the  Unity  of  the  Universe 
in  the  Essential  Being  and  Life  of  God,  as  at  once  Infinite 
Machine,  Infinite  Organism,  and  Infinite  Person,  the  All  as 
Absolute  I. 

BOOK  III 

CRITICAL  REALISM.  DERIVATION  OF  THE  CONCEPT 
FROM  THE  GENUS.  ORGANIC  THEORY  OF  HUMAN 
KNOWLEDGE. 

Philos.  XXV.  The  Genus,  or  Real  Universal  of  Being,  and  the 
Concept,  or  Real  Universal  of  Thought,  together  involve  the 
Equal  Reality  and  Universality  of  Subject  and  Object,  of  which 
Human    Knowledge    in   general    is  the    Real    and    Universal 

Relation. 

Philos.  XXVI.  The  cognitive  relation  of  the  Universal  Real 
Subject  and  the  Universal  Real  Object  involves :  (1)  that  of 
the  Individual  Subject  to  the  Individual  Object,  or  of  the  Person 
to  the  Thing;  (2)  that  of  the  Individual  Subject  to  the  Univer- 
sal Object,  or  of  the  Person  to  the  Cosmos ;  and  (3)  that  of  the 
Universal  Subject  to  the  Universal  Object,  or  of  the  Race  to  the 
Cosmos. 

Philos.  XXVn.  The  cognitive  relation  of  the  Person  to  the  Thing 
involves  :  (1)  the  Intelligibility  of  the  Object,  or  the  Immanent 
Relational  Constitution  of  the  Thing;  (2)  the  Intelligence  of 
the  Subject,  or  the  Immanent  Relational  Constitution  of  the 


FUNDAMENTAL  PHILOSOPHEMES 


317 


Person ;  and  (3)  the  Cognitive  Determination  of  the  Person  by 
the  Thing  in  Intellectual  Perception  and  Conception. 

Philos.  XXVIII.  The  cognitive  relation  of  the  Person  to  the 
Cosmos  involves :  (1)  the  Trichotomy  of  Existence  as  Things, 
Relations,  and  Conditions  ;  (2)  the  Trichotomy  of  Perception  as 
Sensuous,  Intellectual,  and  Rational ;  and  (3)  the  Determination 
of  the  Trichotomy  of  Perception  by  the  Trichotomy  of  Exist- 
ence, or  the  Dependence  of  Epistemology  upon  Ontology. 

Philos.  XXIX.  The  cognitive  relation  of  the  Race  to  the  Cosmos 
involves :  (1)  the  Experiential  Origin  of  all  Human  Knowl- 
edge; (2)  the  Dynamical  Nature  of  all  Human  Knowledge;  and 
(3)  the  Scientific  Method  of  all  Human  Knowledge. 

Philos.  XXX.  The  Exj^eriential  Origin  of  all  Human  Knowledge 
involves:  (1)  the  Necessity  of  Intellectual  Perception  a  posteriori; 
(2)  the  Impossibility  of  Pure  Thought  and  Pure  Knowledge  a 
priori;  and  (3)  the  DerivationTof  all  Forms  of  Human  Thought 
from  Forms  of  Being. 

Philos.  XXXI.  The  Dynamical  Nature  of  all  Human  Knowledge 
involves  either  (1)  Critical  Idealism,  the  Principle  of  the  Gener- 
ation of  the  Universal  Object  by  the  Universal  Subject  (Aprio- 
risjnus),  or  (2)  Critical  Realism,  the  Principle  of  the  Generation 
of  the  Universal  Subject  by  the  Universal  Object  (Aposterioris- 
mus.)  Logically,  no  third  Principle  is  possible.  Further,  the 
Principle  of  Critical  Idealism  involves  the  System  of  Construct- 
ive Idealism,  Idealistic  Evolution,  or  Solipsism ;  and  the  Prin- 
ciple of  Critical  Realism  involves  the  System  of  Constructive 
Realism,  Realistic  Evolution,  or  Cosmism.  Logically,  no  third 
System  is  possible.  Man  is  either  the  Producer  or  the  Product 
of  the  Cosmos. 

Philos.  XXXII.  The  Scientific  Method  of  all  Human  Knowledge 
involves  the  universal  and  necessary  Derivation  of  the  Concept 
from  the  Genus,  or  the  Unity,  Continuity,  and  Essential  Identity 
of  the  Learning-Process  throughout  the  three  stages  of  Experi- 
ence, Science,  and  Philosophy,  in  nine  consecutive  and  constitu- 
tive movements :  — 


A.    Formation  op  Personal  Concepts  in  Experience. 

i.  Individual  Observation  of  Real  Genera  by  means  of  the 
Perceptive  Understanding  ;  or  Formation  of  Personal  Percepts. 
ii.   Individual  Generalization  of  Personal  Percepts  by  means 


318 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


of  the  Conceptive  Understanding;  or  the  Formation  of  Personal 
Working  Hypotheses. 

iii.  Individual  Experimental  Verification  of  Personal  Hypoth- 
eses by  means  of  the  Perceptive  and  Conceptive  Understanding; 
or  Formation  of  Personal  Concepts  in  Experience  (Percept-Con- 
cepts  of  Unit-Universals). 

B.    Formation  of  Race  Concepts  in  Science. 

iv.  Universal  Observation  of  Personal  Concepts  through  Com- 
munication by  Words  in  Language  and  Literature ;  or  Forma- 
tion of  Race  Percepts. 

V.  Universal  Generalization  of  Race  Percepts  through  Criti- 
cism, Combination,  or  Conflict  of  Opinions;  or  Formation  of 
Race  Working  Hypotheses. 

vi.  Universal  Experimental  Verification  of  Race  Hypotheses, 
and  Establishment  of  Scientific  Formulas  of  Truth  thro.igh  the 
Consensus  of  the  Competent ;  or  Formation  of  Race  Concepts 
in  the  Sciences. 

C.    Formation  of  Race  Concepts  in  Philosophy. 

vii.    Universal  Self-Reflective  Observation  of  Race  Concepts, 
and  Self-Recognition  of  Science  as  One  Organic  Joint-Product 
of  One  Organic  World-Order  and  One  Organic  Human  Reason 
or  Birth  of  World-Science  in  the  Philosophic  Percept  of  the  Or- 
ganic Constitution  of  Human  Knowledge. 

viii.  Universal  Self -Reflective  Generalization  of  the  Organic 
Constitution  as  the  Form  of  All  Reality ;  or  Growth  of  World- 
Science  in  the  Philosophic  Hypothesis  of  the  Organic  Inherence 
of  Universal  Finite  Being  in  Universal  Infinite  Person. 

ix.  Universal  Self-Reflective  Experimental  Verification  of  the 
Philosophic  Hypothesis  as  the  Philosophic  World-Truth,  and 
Establishment  of  the  Absolute  Personality  of  the  All  as  the 
Supreme  Fornmla  of  Truth,  through  its  Sole  Adequacy  to  ex- 
plain either  Finite  or  Infinite  Being;  or  the  Maturity  of  World- 
Science  in  the  Scientific  Worid-Concept  as  the  Philosophic  Idea 

of  God. 
Philos.  XXXIII.     Critical  Realism  culminates  in  the  Philosophic 
Idea  of  the  Scientific  Method  as  the  Life-Process  of  Universal 
Human  Knowledge,  as  follows :  — 
The  Scientific  Method,  begun   in   Experience,  developed   in 


FUNDAMENTAL  PHILOSOPHEMES 


319 


Science,  and  perfected  in  Philosophy,  and  constituting,  therefore, 
the  regulative  principle  in  all  Acquisition  of  Experience  and  Or- 
ganization of  Iteason,  involves  the  immanent  relational  consti- 
tution of  Universal  Human  Knowledge  as  a  self-developing  sys- 
tem or  Real  Organism,  whose  Germ  is  the  realized  Identity  in 
Difference  of  Experience  and  Reason  in  the  Syllogism,  as  Per- 
cept-Concept of  the  Unit-Universal,  —  whose  Matter  is  the  in- 
numerable Percept-Concepts  of  Unit-Universals  thence  resulting, 
—  whose  Life  is  the  Universal  Syllogistic  Process  or  Scientific 
Method  itself,  —  whose  Form  is  the  System  of  Organic  Philoso- 
phy,—  whose  Immanent  End  is  the  Perfection  of  Human  Knowl- 
edge, and  whose  Exient  End  is  the  Perfection  of  Human 
Life. 

BOOK  IV 

ETHICAL   REALISM.    DERIVATION    OF   THE    WORD    FROM 
THE  CONCEPT.    ORGANIC  THEORY  OF  HUMAN  CONDUCT. 

Definition.  Ethics  is  the  science  of  Conduct  as  Free  Self-Govern- 
ment,  that  is,  as  Realization  of  the  Concept  in  the  Word,  the 
Purpose  in  the  Deed,  or  the  Ideal  in  the  Real. 

Defiinition.  Personal  Ethicality  is  the  Law  of  the  Utterance  or 
Realization  of  Personal  Concepts  in  Personal  Words,  and  Social 
Ethicality  is  the  Law  of  the  Utterance  or  Realization  of  Race- 
Concepts  in  Race- Words. 


Part  I.  —  Personal  Ethicality.    Ideal  of  the 
Self-Govekning  Person. 

Philos.  XXXIV.  The  Word,  as  Utterance  of  the  Personal  Con- 
cept, involves  the  Real  Principle  of  Freedom,  Self-Determination, 
or  Personal  Ethicality,  in  the  Conscious  Purpose  and  Effort  of 
the  Self-Governing  Person  to  Know,  to  Do,  or  to  Be  :  (1)  Intel- 
lectual Freedom  in  the  Creation  of  Concepts  in  general,  or  Re- 
production of  the  Real  in  the  Ideal ;  and  (2)  Moial  Freedom  in 
the  Creation  of  Words  in  general,  or  Reproduction  of  the  Ideal 
in  the  Real. 

Philos.  XXXV.  Intellectual  Freedom  involves  Reproduction  of 
the  lieal  in  the  Ideal  as  the  Concept  in  general:  (1)  Idealiza- 
tion of  the  Genus  as  the  Concept  in  general,  in  order  to  Know  ; 
(2)    Idealization  of  the  Machine  as  the  Concept  of  the  Causal 


320 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


Means  in  general,  in  order  to  Do ;  (3)  Idealization  of  the  Organ- 
ism as  the  Concept  of  the  Self- Working  System  in  general,  in 
order  to  Do;  and  (4)  Idealization  of  the  Person  as  the  Concept 
of  the  Moral  Ideal  in  general,  in  order  to  Be.     Hence  Truth  to 
Reality  is  the  Absolute  Ethical  Law  of  the  Intellect. 
Philos.  XXXVI.     Moral  Freedom  involves  Reproduction  of  the 
Ideal  in  the  Real  as  the  Word  in  general:  (1)  Realization  of  the 
Concept  in  general  as  the  Word  Proper  in  Language  and  Litera- 
ture; (2)  Realization  of  the  Concept  of  the  Machine  as  the 
Utilitarian  Word  in  Industry  and  the  Esthetic  Word  in  Art; 
(3)  Realization  of  the  Concept  of  the  Organism  as  the  Co-oi^ra- 
tive  Word  in  Association ;  and  (4)  Realization  of  the  Concept 
of  the  Person,  or  the  Moral  Ideal,  as  the  Ethical  Word  in  Life 
and  Character.     Hence  Self-Realization,  Self-Utterance  in  Real- 
ity, or  Truth  to  the  Moral  Ideal,  is  the  Absolute  Ethical  Law  of 

the  Person. 
Philos.  XXXVII.  The  Word  in  general  involves:  (1)  Race- 
Consciousness,  or  the  Pluralism  of  Self  and  Other  Selves  in  the 
sphere  of  Man;  (2)  Self-Consciousness,  or  the  Dualism  of  Self 
and  NotrSelf  in  the  sphere  of  Nature;  and  (3)  God-Conscious- 
ness, or  the   Monism  of   Self  and  All-Self   in   the   sphere  of 

Spirit.  .  . 

Philos.  XXXVIII.  The  Word  Proper  involves  Consciousness  of 
Creative  Power  in  the  sphere  of  tlie  Intellect  or  Understanding 
(Xoyoff  (vbuiBfTos  and  Xo-yoyTrpoC^optKos). 

Philos.  XXXIX.  The  Utilitarian  and  the  Esthetic  Words  in- 
volve Consciousness  of  Creative  Power  in  the  sphere  of  Nature, 
and  the  Co-operative  Word  involves  Consciousness  of  Creative 
Power  in  the  sphere  of  Man. 

Philos.  XL.  The  Ethical  Word  involves  Consciousness  of  Self- 
Creative  Power  in  the  sphere  of  Spirit. 

Philos.  XLI.  Race-Consciousness  involves :  (1)  Consciousness  of 
the  Organic  Union  of  the  Personal  Self  with  Other  Selves  in 
Society;  (2)  Consciousness,  through  Pleasure  and  Sympathy, 
of  the  Absolute  Must,  or  Absolute  Organic  Necessity,  in  the 
Organic  Idea  as  the  Ideal  of  Reciprocity,  or  Absolute  End  of 
the  Organic  Constitution ;  and  (3)  Consciousness  through  Pain 
and  Antipathy,  that  Failure  to  Realize  the  Organic  Idea  is  not 
only  Organic  Disease  or  Death  of  the  Organism,  but  also  Viola- 
tion of  the  Ideal  of  Reciprocity. 
Philos.  XL  11.    Self-Consciousness  involves:  (1)  Consciousness  of 


FUNDAMENTAL  PHILOSOPHEMES 


321 


the  Reality,  Unity,  and  Identity  of  the  Personal  Self ;  (2)  Con- 
sciousness, through  Happiness,  of  the  Absolute  Ought,  or  Abso- 
lute Personal  Obligation,  in  the  Moral  Ideal,  or  Absolute  End 
of  the  Personal  Constitution;  and  (3)  Consciousness,  through 
Unhappiness,  that  Failure  to  Realize  the  Moral  Ideal  is  Moral 
Disease  or  Death  of  the  Person. 

Philos.  XLIII.  God-Consciousness  involves:  (1)  Consciousness 
of  the  Personal  Union  of  the  Finite  Self  with  the  Infinite  All- 
Self;  (2)  Consciousness,  through  Self- Approval,  of  the  Essen- 
tial Identity  of  the  Finite  Ideal  with  the  Infinite  Ideal;  and 
(3)  Consciousness,  through  Self-Condemnation,  of  the  Absolute 
Authority  and  Inviolable  Sanctity  of  the  Moral  Ideal,  as  the 
Absolute  Self-Legislating  and  Self-Executing  End  of  the  Uni- 
verse. That  is.  Consciousness  of  Necessary  Self-Judgment  by 
the  Personal  Conscience  is  Consciousness  of  Necessary  Judg- 
ment by  the  All- Personal  Conscience. 

Philos.  XLIV.  Race-Consciousness,  Self-Consciousness,  and  God- 
Consciousness  reciprocally  involve  each  other. 

Philos.  XLV.  The  Absolute  Must  in  the  Organic  Idea  and  the 
Absolute  Ought  in  the  Personal  Ideal  reciprocally  involve  each 
other.  That  is,  in  the  Evolution  of  Nature,  Absolute  Moral 
Obligation  in  Consciousness  is  grounded  in,  and  derived  from, 
Absolute  Organic  Necessity  in  Constitution ;  while,  in  the  In- 
volution of  Spirit,  Absolute  Organic  Necessity  in  Constitution 
is  grounded  in,  and  derived  from.  Absolute  Moral  Obligation  in 
Consciousness. 

Philos.  XLVI.  The  Organic  Idea,  or  Concept  of  the  Absolute 
End  of  the  Organism,  written  in  the  Organic  Constitution  as 
the  Divine  Law  of  its  Being,  involves :  (1)  the  Immanent  End 
as  Self-Evolution;  (2)  the  Exient  End  as  Self-Devotion ;  and 
(3)  Harmony  of  Self -Evolution  and  Self-Devotion  in  Uncon- 
scious Character.  Therefore,  The  Organic  Constitution  is  the 
Utterance  or  Actual  Realization  of  the  Organic  Idea  as  the 
Legislative  Word  of  God  in  Nature. 

Philos.  XLVII.  The  Moral  Ideal,  or  Concept  of  the  Absolute 
End  of  the  Person,  written  in  the  Personal  Constitution  as  the 
Divine  Law  of  its  Being,  involves:  (1)  the  Immanent  End  as 
Egoism,  or  Personal  Self-Culture  in  Wholeness  and  Holiness; 
(2)  the  Exient  End  as  Altruism,  or  Social  Usefulness  in  Ser- 
vice, Justice,  and  Love;  and  (3)  Harmony  of  Egoism  and 
Altruism  in  Conscious  Character.     Therefore,  the  Personal  Con- 

VOL.  II.  — 21 


322 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOrHY 


stitution  is  the  Utterance  or  Possible  Realization  of  the  Moral 
Ideal  as  the  Legislative  Word  of  God  to  Man. 
Philos.  XLVIII.  Egoism,  or  Personal  Self-Culture,  involves: 
(1)  Pursuit  of  Knowledge,  or  Loyalty  to  Truth ;  (2)  Pursuit 
of  Virtue,  or  Loyalty  to  Goodness ;  (3)  Pursuit  of  Loveliness, 
or  Loyalty  to  Beauty;  (4)  Pursuit  of  Health;  and  (5)  Pursuit 

of  Happiness. 

Philos.  XLIX.  Altruism,  or  Social  Usefulness,  involves :  (1)  Ser- 
vice of  the  Home;  (2)  Service  of  Friends;  (3)  Service  of 
Country ;  (4)  Service  of  Mankind ;  and  (5)  Service  of  God. 

Philos.  L.  Realized  Harmony  of  Egoism  and  Altruism  in  Con- 
scious Character  involves  Free  Self-Utterance  of  the  Concept  of 
the  Absolute  Personal  End,  Realization  of  the  Moral  Ideal  in 
Personal  Life,  or  the  Supreme  Word  of  Man  to  God  in  Religion. 

Part  II.  —  Corporate    or  Social  Ethicauty.     Ideal  of 

THE  Self-governing  People. 

Philos.  LI.  The  Word,  as  Utterance  of  the  Race-Concept,  in- 
volves the  Real  Principle  of  Freedom,  Self-Determination,  or 
Social  Ethicality,  in  the  Corporate  Purpose  and  Effort  of  the 
Self-Governing  People  or  State:  (1)  Social  Freedom  in  the 
Formation  of  Race-Concepts  in  general,  or  the  Idealization  of 
the  Real;  and  (2)  Political  Freedom  in  the  Formation  of  Race- 
Words  in  general,  or  the  Realization  of  the  Ideal. 

Philos.  LII.  The  Corporate  Self-Governing  State  involves  (1)  Social 
Constitution  in  a  Community  of  Persons  organized  as  a  Family 
of  Families  on  the  Basis  of  Race ;  (2)  Political  Constitution  in 
a  Community  of  Persons  organized  as  a  Commonwealth  of  Citi- 
zens on  the  Basis  of  Law;  and  (3)  Ethical  Constitution  in  a 
Community  of  Persons  organized  as  a  Brotherhood  of  Men  on 
the  Basis  of  Religion.  Therefore,  the  State  is  an  Organism  of 
Persons,  and  to  that  extent  involves  the  Ethical  Principle  of 
Freedom. 

Philos.  LIII.  The  Corporate  Purpose  of  the  Self-Governing  State 
involves  Social  Freedom  in  Intellectual  Co-operation,  or  Freedom 
of  Public  Speech  and  of  the  Public  Press:  (1)  Co-operative 
Formation  of  Race-Percepts  and  Race-Concepts  in  general; 
(2)  Co-operative  Formation  of  Race-Concepts  of  Machinery,  as 
the  Causal  Means  in  general;  (3)  Co-operative  Formation  of 
Race-Concepts  of  Organization,  as  the  Self- Working  System  in 


FUNDAMENTAL  PHILOSOPIIEMES 


323 


general;  and  (4)  Co-operative  Formation  of  Race-Concepts  of 
Civilization,  or  Civilized  Society,  as  the  Ethico-Social  Ideal  in 
general. 

Philos.  LIV.  The  Corporate  Effort  of  the  Self-Governing  State 
involves  Political  Freedom  in  Civic  Co-operation,  or  Freedom  of 
Public  Action  and  of  the  Public  Meeting:  (1)  Co-operative 
Formation  of  Public  Judgment  and  Will  in  Law,  Language,  and 
Literature  ;  (2)  Co-operative  Formation  of  Public  Machinery  in 
Industry  and  Art ;  (3)  Co-operative  Formation  of  Public  Organi- 
zation in  Institutions;  and  (4)  Co-operative  Formation  of  Civ- 
ilized Society,  or  Realization  of  the  Ethico-Political  Ideal  in 
Political  Character  and  Life. 

Philos.  LV.  The  Social  Constitution  of  the  Self-Governing  State, 
as  a  Family  of  Families  on  the  Basis  of  Race,  involves  Corporate 
Race-Consciousness  of  a  Common  Origin,  a  Common  Nature,  a 
Common  Interest,  a  Common  Sympathy,  and  a  Common  Destiny 
in  Weal  or  Woe,  as  the  Ground  of  a  Corporate  Purpose  and 
Effort.  This  is  the  Principle  of  Socialism :  Each  for  All  — 
Society  is  the  End  of  the  Individual. 

Philos.   LVI.     The  Political  Constitution  of  the   Self- Govern  in"- 

O 

State,  as  a  Commonwealth  of  Citizens  on  the  Basis  of  Law,  in- 
volves Corporate  Self -Consciousness  of  Universal  Personal  Rights 
and  Duties  in  the  People  as  Individuals,  and  of  the  Universal 
Need  of  Government  for  the  Establishment  of  these  Rights  and 
Duties,  as  the  Condition  of  a  CoriX)rate  Purpose  and  Effort. 
This  is  the  Principle  of  Individualism :  All  for  Each  —  the  Indi- 
vidual is  the  End  of  Society. 

Philos.  LVII.  The  Ethical  Constitution  of  the  Self-Governing 
State,  as  a  Brotherhood  of  Men  on  the  Basis  of  Religion,  involves 
Corporate  God-Con scionsness  of  the  Infinite,  Absolute,  or  Divine 
Moral  Ideal  as  the  Higher  Law  of  the  State  itself,  of  the  Organic 
Union  of  All  Persons  with  the  All-Person  as  Father,  and  of  the 
Organic  Union  of  All  Persons  with  Each  Other  as  Brothers,  as 
the  End  of  a  Corporate  Purpose  and  Effort.  This  is  the  Prin- 
ciple of  Universalism  :  Each  for  All,  All  for  Each,  and  Both  for 
God  —  God  is  the  End  of  Society  and  of  the  Individual.  That 
is,  the  State  is  also  the  True  Family  and  the  True  Church. 

Philos.  LVIII.  The  Principle  of  Socialism  involves  Organic  Self- 
Evolution  and  Self-Devotion  in  Man  as  the  Family. 

Philos.  LIX.  The  Principle  of  Individualism  involves  Corporate 
Egoism  and  Altruism  in  Man  as  the  State. 


324 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


Philos.  LX.     The  Principle  of  Universal  ism  involves    Personal 

Egoism  and  Altruism  in  Man  as  tlie  Church. 
Philos.  LXI.     The  Principles   of   Socialism,   Individualism,   and 
Universalism  reciprocally  involve  each  other,  and  are  One  in 
Universalism. 
Philos.  LXII.     The  Family,  or  Natural  Union  of  Individuals  on 
the  Basis  of  Sex,  involves :  (1)  Monogamy,  or  the  Marriage  of 
One  Husband  and  One  Wife;  (2)  Mutual  Love,  Mutual  Fidelity, 
and  Personal   Equality  between    Husband  and  Wife;  and  (3) 
Mutual    Love,   Devotion,   and   Service    between    Parents    and 
Children.     That  is,  Man,  Woman,  and  Child  are  the  Family 
Triple-Unit,  and  the  Family  is  the  Social  Unit. 
Philos.  LXIII.     The  State,  or  Natural  Union  of  Individuals  on 
the   Basis  of  Civil   Law,   involves:   (1)   Equality   of   Natural 
Rights  and  Duties  in  the  People  as  Individuals ;  (2)  Origin  of 
Law  and  Government  in  the  Common  Act  of  the  People  as  in- 
dividuals;  (3)  End  of  Law  and  Government  in  the  Common 
Service  of  the  People  as  Individuals ;  and  (1)  Limit  of  Law  and 
Government  in  the  Natural  Rights  and  Duties  of  the  People  as 
Individuals.     That  is.  Government  of  the  People  by  the  People 
for  the  People  is  the  Political  Universal  as  Democracy,  and  the 
Individual  is  the  Political  Unit  as  Freeman. 
Philos.  LXIV.     The  Church,  or  Natural  Union  of  Individuals  on 
the  Basis  of  Moral  Law,  involves:  (1)   Intellectual  and  Moral 
Freedom  of  the  Individual  as  the  Condition  of  Religious  Fellow- 
ship; (2)  Free  Self-Consecration  of  the  Individual  to  the  Divine 
Ideal,  as  the  Ground  of  Religious  Fellowship;  and  (3)  Free  Self- 
Consecration  of  Society  to  the  Universal  Realization  of  the  Di- 
vine Ideal,  as  the  End  of  Religious  Fellowship.     That  is,  the 
Service  of  Man  is  the  Service  of  God :  God  is  the  Religious  Unit. 
Philos.  LXV.     The  Family,  the  State,  and  the  Church,  as  three 
great  Natural  Institutions  or  Race- Words,  involve  respectively 
the  Domestic  Ideal,  the  Democratic  Ideal,  and  the  Religious  Ideal. 
Philos.  LXVI.     The  Domestic  Ideal,  the  Democratic  Ideal,  and 
the  Religious  Ideal  reciprocally  involve  each  other,  and  can  be 
fully  realized  in  the  Ethical  Constitution  alone. 
Philos.  LXVII.     Real  Harmony  of  the  Domestic,  Democratic,  and 
Religious  Ideals  in  the  Self-Governing  State  involves  Self-Utter- 
ance of  the  Race-Concept  of  Humanity,  Realization  of  the  Eth- 
ical Ideal  in  National  Life,  or  the  Supreme  Word  of  Mankind  to 
God  in  Religion. 


FUNDAMENTAL  PHILOSOPHEMES  325 


BOOK  V 

RELIGIOUS  REALISM.    SELF-REALIZATION  OF  MAN  IN 
GOD.    ORGANIC  THEORY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE. 

Definition.  Religion  is  the  Effort  of  Man  to  Perfect  Himself  in 
All  his  Relations,  and  thereby  to  Fulfil  the  Absolute  End  of  his 
Being  in  God. 

Philos.  LXVIII.  God  as  the  One,  or  Religious  Unit,  involves : 
(1)  One  Absolute  Substance,  or  Eternal  and  Onmipresent 
Energy  ;  (2)  One  Absolute  Essence,  or  Eternal  and  Omnipresent 
Personality;  and  (3)  One  Absolute  Life- Process  in  I'ersonality, 
or  Self-Involution  of  Spirit  in  Nature  and  Self-Evolution  of 
Nature  in  Spirit  throughout  Space  and  Time.  This  is  Absolute 
Monism,  the  Real  Ground  of  all  Religion. 

Philos.  LXIX.  God  as  the  All,  or  Religious  Universal,  involves : 
(1)  Spirit  in  Nature,  or  Person,  as  the  Divine  Genus;  (2)  the 
Absolute  Ideal  as  the  Divine  Concept ;  and  (3)  Nature  in  Spirit 
as  the  Divine  Word. 

Philos.  LXX.  Spirit  in  Nature  as  the  Divine  Genus  involves 
God  in  Man  as  the  Human  Spirit. 

Philos.  LXXI.  The  Absolute  Ideal  as  the  Divine  Concept  in- 
volves God  in  Man  as  the  Human  Ideal. 

Philos.  LXXII.  Nature  in  Spirit  as  the  Divine  Word  involves 
(iod  in  Man  as  Human  Nature  and  Human  Life. 

Philos.  LXXIII.  God  in  Man  as  the  Human  Spirit  involves 
Human  Aspiration  to  the  Divine  Spirit.  This  is  the  Ground  of 
Worship. 

Philos.  LXXIV.  God  in  Man  as  the  Human  Ideal  involves 
Human  Recognition  of  the  Divine  Ideal.  This  is  the  Ground 
of  Responsibility. 

Philos.  LXXV.  God  in  Man  as  Human  Nature  and  Human 
Life  involves  Human  Participation  in  the  Divine  Nature  and 
the  Divine  Life.     This  is  the  Ground  of  Effort  and  Work. 

Philos.  LXX VI.  Human  Aspiration  to  the  Divine  Spirit  in- 
volves Divine  Revelation  of  the  Universal  Law  of  Love. 

Philos.  LXXVII.  Human  Recognition  of  the  Divine  Ideal 
involves  Divine  Revelation  of  the  Universal  Law  of  Duty. 

Philos.  LXXV  III.  Human  Participation  in  the  Divine  Nature 
and  Divine  Life  involves  Divine  Revelation  of  the  Universal  Law 
of  Freedom. 


326 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


Philos.  LXXIX.     The  Universal  Law  of  Love  involves  the  Father- 
hood of  God  and  the  Sonship  and  Brotherhood  of  Man,  as  the 
Ethical  Constitution  of  Universal  Spiritual  Society,  that  is,  of 
the  Universe  as  Home. 
Philos.  LXXX.     The  Universal  Law  of  Duty  involves  the  Abso- 
lute Authority  of  the  Divine  Ideal  in  Human  Life,  as  the  Abso- 
lute Ideal  of  Mankind  in  its  complex  constitution  as  the  Person, 
the  Family,  the  State,  and  the  Church. 
Philos.  LXXXI.     The  Universal  Law  of  Freedom  involves  the 
Equal  Possibility,  in  every  Human  Life,  of  Loyalty  and  Dis- 
loyalty to  the  Divine  Ideal. 
Philos.  LXXXIl.     The  Fatherhood  of  God  and  the  Sonship  of 
Man  involve  the  Determination  of  Human  Destiny  by  Divine 
Wisdom,  Justice,  and  Love. 
Philos.  LXXXIII.    The  Absolute  Authority  of  the  Divine  Ideal 
in  Human   Life  involves  the  Unattainability  of  the  Absolute 
Ideal  of  Humanity,  but  the  Attainability  of  Loyalty  in  the  End- 
less Pursuit  of  the  Unattainable  Ideal. 
Philos.  LXXXIV.     Tlie  Equal  Possibility,  in  every  Human  Life, 
of  Loyalty  and  Disloyalty  to  the  Divine  Ideal  involves  :  (1)  the 
Reality  of  Holiness  in  the  Loyal  Life ;  (2)  the  Reality  of  Sin  in 
the  Disloyal  Life;  and  (3)  the  Self- Vindication  of  the  Divine 
Ideal  in  the  Natural  Consequences  of  Loyalty  and  Disloyalty. 
Philos.  LXXXV.     The  Reality  of  Holiness  in  the  Loyal  Life  in- 
volves, as  Natural  Consequence,  Happiness,  Self-Peace,  and  Joy 
in  Conscious  Spiritual  Union  with  God. 
Philos.  LXXXVI.     The  Reality  of  Sin  in  the  Disloyal  Life  in- 
volves, as   Natural   Consequence,  Unhappiness,  Self-War,  and 
Self- Abhorrence  in  Conscious  Spiritual  Alienation  from  God. 
Philos.  LXXXVII.     The  Self- Vindication  of  the  Divine  Ideal  in 
the  Natural  Consequences  of  Loyalty  and  Disloyalty  involves, 
in  the  Spiritual  Organism,  whether  Personal  or  Social,  either 
Health,  Evolution,  and  Desert  of  Eternal  Life,  or  Disease,  Dis- 
solution, and  Desert  of  Eternal  Death. 
Philos.  LXXXVIII.     The  Reality  of  Holiness  and  of  Sin  in  every 
Human  Life  involves  Inspiration  or  Corruption  in  Social  Life : 
in  things  spiritual  Health  is  as  catching  as  Disease  —  Holiness 
and  Sin  are  equally  contagious.     This  is  the  Law  of  Influence  or 

Example. 
Philos.  LXXXIX.     The   Determination   of  Human   Destiny  by 
Divine  Wisdom,  Justice,  and  Love,  the  Unattainability  of  the 


FUNDAMENTAL  PHILOSOPHEMES 


327 


Absolute  Ideal  of  the  Human  Person,  and  the  Desert  of  Eternal 
Life  by  the  Loyal  Person,  together  involve  the  Hope  and  Ethical 
Necessity  of  Personal  Immortality,  as  Eternal  Pursuit  of  the 
Absolute  Divine  Ideal  by  the  Loyal  Human  Spirit. 
Philos.  XC.  The  Determination  of  Human  Destiny  by  Divine 
Wisdom,  Justice,  and  Love,  the  Unattainability  of  the  Absolute 
Ideal  of  Human  Society,  and  the  Desert  of  Eternal  Life  by  the 
Loyal  Society,  together  involve  the  Hope  and  Ethical  Necessity 
of  Social  Immortality,  as  Eternal  Pursuit  of  the  Absolute  Divine 
Ideal  by  the  Re-united  Society  of  Loyal  Human  Spirits. 


.. 


THE  CATEGORIES   OP  ORGANIC 
PHILOSOPHY 


I. 

II. 

III. 

IV. 


CATEGORIES  OF  BEING 
CATEGORIES  OF  MIND 
CATEGORIES  OF   EVOLUTION 
CATEGORIES  OF  CONSTITUTION 


Definitions. 

Energy. 

Immanent  Relational  Constitution. 
Involution  and  Evolution  of  Essence  in 
Substance. 
4.   Reality      =  Identity  in  Difference  of  Substance,  Es- 
sence, and  l*i'ocess. 


1.  Substance 

2.  Essence 

3.  Process 


CATEGORIES   OF   BEING 

I.   Immanent  Unconditioned  Conditions  of  Being,  or 
Apriori  op  Essence  in  Suijstance. 

i.  Space,  or  Condition  of  Extensive  Continuity  in  Essence. 

ii.  Time,  or  Condition  of  Protensive  Continuity  in  Essence. 
iii.  Energy,  or  Condition  of  State  and  Change  in  Essence, 
iv.  Law  of  Unit-Universals,  Apriori  of  Being,  or  Condition 
of  Relation  in  Essence  : 

1.  Law  of  Necessity  in  Essential  Relations. 

2.  Law  of  Contlngenri/  in  Non-essential  Relations. 

3.  Law  of  Freedom  in  Ethical  Relations. 

II.  Conditioned  Being,  or  Aposterioki  of  Essence 

IN  Substance. 

i.  Real  Things. 

1.  Machines  as  Causal  Energy  in  Motion. 

2.  Organisms  as  Causal-Teleological  Energy  in  Life. 

3.  Persons  as  Causal-Teleological-Etliical  Energy  in  Conduct. 


I  / 


IH 


If 


330  THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 

ii.  Real  Relations. 
1.    Necessity  in  Essence :  e.g. 

a.  Metaphysical  in  Correlation  of  Conditioned  and  Uncon- 
ditioned, and  of  Substance,  Essence,  and  Process  in 

the  Keal. 
h.  Mathematical  in  Correlations  of  Number  in  Quantity 

and  Form. 

c.  Physical  in  Correlations  of  Degree  in  Quality,  Motion, 

and  Action. 

d.  Dynamical  in  Correlation  of  Cause  and  Effect  in  the 

Event. 

e.  Psychical  in  Correlation  of  Knower  and  Known  in  the 

Cognition. 
/.   Logical  in  Correlation  of  Premise  and  Conclusion  in  the 

Syllogism. 
g,   Teleological  in  Correlation  of   End  and  Means  in  the 

Effort. 
h.  Ethical  in  Correlation  of  Ideal  and  Real  in  the  Deed. 
i.    Spiritual  in  Correlation  of  Deed  and  Consequence  in  the 

Character. 

2.    Contingency  in  Non-essential  Relations :  e.  g. 

a.  Spatial :  Position,  Distance,  Direction. 

h.  Temporal :  Simultaneity,  Priority,  Posteriority. 

c.  Quantitative :  Magnitude,  Multitude,  Increase,  Decrease. 

d.  Qualitative:  Degree,  Equality,  Superiority,  Inferiority. 

e.  Dynamical:  Action,  Inaction,  Reaction. 

/   Statical :  Identity,  Similarity,  Dissimilarity. 

3.   Freedom  in  Essence. 

Ethical  in  Correlation  of  Ideal  and  Real  in  Purpose 
and  Effort. 


TRICHOTOMY   OF   EXISTENCE  =  THINGS,   RELATIONS, 

CONDITIONS. 


THE  CATEGORIES  OF  ORGANIC  PHILOSOPHY     331 


CATEGORIES   OF  MIND 

I.  Unity  op  Constitution, 

Conduct,  and  Character,  in  Identity  of 
Personality. 

II.  Diversity  of  Function. 

1.  Receptivity  or  Original  Experience. 

1.  Sensitive: 

a.  Sensation  (Bodily  Feeling). 

b.  Emotion  (Immanent  Mental  Feeling). 

c.  Affection  (Exient  Mental  Feeling). 

2.  Cognitive  (Perceptive  Understanding)  : 

a.  Sensuous  Perception  (Perception  of  Feeling,  and 

Apperception  of  Self  in  Feeling :  "  I  know  that 
I  feel"  and  "I  know  that  /feel"). 

b.  Intellectual  Perception  (Perception  of  Keal  Rela- 

tions of  Things). 

c.  Rational  Perception  (Perception  of  Real  Conditions 

of  Things). 

ii.  Retentivity  or  Conaervation  of  Eicperience. 

1.  Organic : 

a.  Memory  and  Recollection  (Organic  Permanence  of 

Experiences). 

b.  Association  and  HaJ)lt  (Personal  Organization  of 

Experiences). 

c.  Instinct  and  Faculty  (Hereditary  Organization  of 

Experiences). 

2.  Cognitive  (Conceptive  Understanding)  : 

a.  Imagination  (Concepts  of  Things). 

b.  Intellect  (Concepts  of  Relations). 

c.  Reason  (Concepts  of  Conditions). 

iii.  Spontaneity  or  Reaction  to  Experience. 

1.    Volitive : 

a.    Concentration^  or  Will  in  Thinking  (Purpose,  Atten- 
tion, Deliberation,  Recollection,  etc.). 


I  . 


I 


i! 


I 


w 


332 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


h.  Appetency,   or   Will  in  Feeling  (Desire,   Appetite, 

Passion,  etc.). 
c.    Active  Energy,  or  Will  Proper  (Purpose,  Volition, 

Action,  Effort,  etc.). 

2.   Cognitive  : 

a.  Analytical  or  Perceptive  Understanding  (Compari- 
son, Discrimination,  Abstraction,  etc.). 

h.  Synthetical  or  Conceptive  Understanding  (Predica- 
tion, Reasoning,  Generalization,  etc.). 

c.  Teleological  or  Creative  Understanding  (Formation 

of  Purpose  to  Know,  to  Do,  or  to  Be  — Free 
Creation  of  Immanent  Relational  Constitutions 
in  Concepts  of  Ends  and  Means  —  Free  Creation 
of  Life-Purpose  as  the  Personal  Ideal). 

d.  Judicial  or  Ethical  Understanding  (Necessary  Sub- 

sumption  of  Deed,  Word,  and  Thought  under 
Absolute  Moral  Law  —  Necessary  Judgment  and 
Self- Judgment  in  the  Court  of  Conscience). 

e.  Religious  or   Spiritual    Understanding   (Necessary 

Subsumption  of  Absolute  Moral  Law  in  Man 
under  Absolute  Moral  Law  in  Nature,  of  the 
Finite  Ethical  Ideal  under  the  Infinite  Ethical 
Ideal,  and  of  the  Finite  Personal  Self  under  the 
Infinite  Personal  Self). 


TRICHOTOMY     OF     PERCEPTION  =  SENSUOUS,      INTELLECTUAL, 

RATIONAL. 

CATEGORIES   OF   EVOLUTION 

THE  FIVE  CAUSES  OF  GENESIS. 

I.   Germ. 

Efficient  Cause  —  Ideal  Essence  of  the  Thing,  as  Precon- 
ceived End  in  Energy  of  Creative  Mind. 

II.   Matter. 
Material  Cause  =  Substance  or  Energy. 


THE  CATEGORIES  OF  ORGANIC  PHILOSOPHY     333 


III.    Method. 

Modal  Cause  =  Evolution  through  Involution  or  Gradual 
Realizing  Process. 

IV.   Form. 

Formal  Cause  =  Realized  Essence  of  the  Thing  as  an  End 
in  Itself. 

V.   End. 

Final  Cause  =  Realized  Essence  of  the  Thing  as  a  Means 
to  an  End  out  of  Itself. 


CATEGORIES   OF  CONSTITUTION 

I.   Method  of  Becoming. 

Genesis  =  Evolution  of  Essence  in  Substance  or  of  Form 
in  Matter  =  Process  of  Formation  as  Sequence  in  Time. 

II.   Mode  of  Being. 

System  =  Unity  of  Substance  and  Essence  or  of  Form  and 
Matter  =  Result  of  Formation  as  Co-existence  in  Space. 

III.  Being  in  and  through  Becoming. 

Constitution  =  Unity  of  Genesis  and  System,  or  of  Sub- 
stance, Process,  and  Essence,  as  Total  Reality  of  the 
Thing  in  Itself  in  Space  and  Time. 

IV.  Constitution  of  Infinite  Being. 

1.  Infinite  Substance  =  Universal  Energy  or  Self- Activity. 

2.  Infinite  Process  =  Eternal  Self-Creation  of  Essence  in 

Substance,  or  Self-Involution  of  Spirit  in  Nature  as 
the  One  in  tlie  Many,  and  Self-Evolution  of  Nature  in 
Spirit  as  the  Many  in  the  One,  throughout  Space  and 
Time. 

3.  Infinite  Essence  =  Immanent  Relational  Constitution  of 

Universal  Energy  as  Infinite  Personality,  One  in 
Many  as  Self-Involving  Spirit  and  Many  in  One  as 


V' 


V 


{ 


334  THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 

Self-Evolving  Nature,  or  Cosmical  Constitution  of  the 
Absolute  All-Thing  in  Itself  as  at  once  Infinite  Ma- 
chine, Infinite  Organism,  and  Infinite  Person. 

V.   Constitution  of  Finite  Being. 

1.  Finite  Substance  =  Unit  of  Energy  individualized  out  of, 

but  within.  Universal  Energy,  as  One  of  the  Many. 

2.  Finite  Process  =  Creation  of  Essence  in  Substance,  or 

Evolution  in  Space  and  Time. 

3.  Finite  Essence  =  Immanent  Relational  Constitution  of 

Unit  of  Energy  as  One  of  the  Many,  or  Real  Nature 
of  the  Thing  in  Itself  as  Finite  Machine,  Finite 
Organism,  or  Finite  Person. 


FUNDAMENTAL  ANALYSES 


UNIVERSAL  ELEMENTS 

OF   THE 

MACHINE,  ORGANISM,   AND  PERSON, 

AS    THE   ONLY    KNOWN 

TYPES  OF  THINGS  IN  THEMSELVES, 

AND   OF   THE 

COSMOS, 

AS   THE 

ABSOLUTE  ALL-THING  IN  ITSELF 

OR 

UNIVERSAL  NATURE 


THE  MECHANICAL  CONSTITUTION 

Analysia  of  the  Machine  as  known  in  Experience. 
I.   Mechanical  Genesis:   Form  Deriving. 

1.  Germ  =  Mechanical   Idea   in   External   Maker   (Ideal 

Essence). 

2.  Matter  =  Appropriated  External  Energy  of  Nature. 

3.  Method  =  Artificial  Process  of  Construction  and  Use. 

4.  Form  =  Causal   Means   between  External   Maker  and 

External  Effect. 

5.  End  =  Real  Essence  of  the  Machine : 

a.  Immanent  End  =  Machine  as  End  in  Itself. 

b,  Exient  End  =  Machine  as  Mcmis  to  External 

Effect. 


it'l 


M 


336  THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 

II.    Mechanical  System:   Form  Derived. 

1.  Inherence :  Collocation  of  Parts  in  Whole,  and  of  Whole 

in  Self-Extended  Organism. 

2.  Camalitij :  Parts  =  Minor  Machines  in  Whole  Machine 

=  Internal  Co-efPects  of  External  Cause  and  Internal 
Causes  of  Internal  Effects :  Whole  =  Total  Eftect  of 
External  Cause  and  Total  Cause  of  External  Effect. 

3.  Finality :  Parts  =  Means  to  Whole  as  End :  Whole  = 

Means  to  External  Effect  as  End. 

III.   Mechanical  Constitution:   Derivative  Form. 

Causal  Energy  Individualized  and  Utilized  by  the  Organ- 
ism as  an  Artijicial,  Separable,  and  Temporary  Organ  for 
its  own  Self- Extension. 

THE   ORGANIC  CONSTITUTION 

Analysis  of  the  Organism  as  known  in  Experience. 
I.   Organic  Genesis:  Form  Involved  and  Evolving. 

1.  Germ  =  Immanent  Inherited  Organic  Idea  (Ideal  Es- 

sence). 

2.  Mr/ «er=  Self- Appropriated  External  Energy  of  Nature. 

3.  Method  =  Natural  Process  of  Self-Evolution  with  Modi- 

ficjition  by  Environment. 

4.  Form  =  Causal  Means  between  the  Organism  and  its 

own  End. 
6.  Fnd  =  Real  Essence  of  the  Organism : 

a.  Immanent  End  =  Organism  as  End  and  Means 

to  Itself. 

b,  Exient  End  =  Organism  as  End  and  Means  to 

its  own  Species. 

II.   Organic  System:  Form  Evolved  as  Involved. 

1.  Reciprocal  Inherence   of  Organism  and  Organs   (Con- 

tinens  Sui). 

2.  Reciprocal  Causality  of  Organism  and  Organs  (Causa 

Sui). 


FUNDAMENTAL  ANALYSES 


337 


3.  Reciprocal  Finality  of  Organism  and  Organs  (Finis  Sui) 
and  of  Organisms  and  Species  (Finis  Alterius). 

III.   Organic  Constitution:  Involved  and  Self- 
Evolving  Form. 

Individualized   Teleological    Energy   as    Self-Making  a7id 
Self-  Working  Machine  or  Self  Embodying  Life. 


THE  PERSONAL  CONSTITUTION 

Analysis  of  the  Person  as  known  in  Experience. 

I.  Personal  Genesis:  Form  Determining. 

1.  Germ  =  Immanent  Inherited  Personal  Idea  (Ideal  Es- 

sence). 

2.  Matter  =  Self-Appropriated  External  Energy  of  Nature. 

3.  Method  =zEthicail  Process  of  Self-liealization  in  Limited 

Freedom. 

4.  Form  =  Causal  Means  between  the  Finite  Person  and 

its  own  Ideal. 

5.  End  =  Real  Essence  of  the  Finite  Person  as  its  own 

Realized  Ideal: 

a.  Immiuieiit  End  =  Real  Person  as  End  and  Means 

to  its  own  Finite  Ideal. 

b.  Exient  End  =  Real  Person  as  End  and  Means  to 

the  Infinite  Ideal. 

II.  Personal  System  :  Form  Determined. 

1.  Finite  Self-Inherence :   Identity  of  Subject  and  Object 

(Conscientia  Sui). 

2.  Finite   Self-Causality:   Identity  of   Cause  and   Effect 

(Causa  Sui). 

3.  Finite  Self-Finality :  Identity  of  End  and  Means  (Finis 

Sui). 

4.  Finite   Self-Morality :  Identity  of  Real  and  Ideal  (Lex 

Sui). 

VOL.  II.  — 22 


838 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


ti 


III.  Personal  Constitution:  Self-Determining  Form. 
Individualized    Self-Conscious    Energy    as    Self- Realizing 
Ideal  or  Self-Creating  Character, 

THE   COSMICAL  CONSTITUTION 

As  Infinite  Machine,  Organism,  and  Person. 
I.   CosMiCAL  Genesis:  Eternal  Becoming. 

1.  Germ  =  Immanent  Infinite  Ideal  (Natura  Naturans). 

2.  Matter  =  Infinite  Self-Existent  Energy  of  Nature. 

3.  Method  =  Ethical  Process  of  Self-Kealization  in  Illimit- 

able Freedom. 

4.  Form  =  Causal  Means  between  Infinite  Person  and  In- 

finite Ideal  (Natura  Naturata). 

5.  End  =  Real  Essence  of  the  Infinite  Person  as  its  own 

Realized  Ideal : 

a.  Immanent  End  =  Person  self-realized  as  the  One 

in  the  Many  (Spirit). 

b.  Exient  End  =  Person  self-realized  as  the  Many 

in  the  One  (Nature). 

II.   CosMicAL  System:  Infinite  Being. 

1.  Infinite  Self- Inherence :  Identity  of  Subject  and  Object 

(Conscientia  Sui). 

2.  Infinite  Self-Causality :   Identity  of  Cause  and  Effect 

(Causa  Sui). 

3.  Infinite  Self-Finality :  Identity  of  End  and  Means  (Finis 

Sui). 

4.  Infinite  Self-Morality :  Identity  of  Real  and  Ideal  (Lex 

Sui). 

III.   Cosmical  Constitution:  Infinite  Being  in  Eter- 
nal Becoming. 

Universal  Self-Conscious  Energy  as  Infinite  Self  Realizing 
Ideal,  or  Self-Creating  Character  of  the  Infinite  Divine 
Person  as  Absolute  Wisdom,  Goodness,  and  Power, 


UNIVERSAL  SCHEMA  OF  ORGANIC 

PHILOSOPHY 


SCHEMA  I 
ORGANISM  OF  HUMAN  KNOWLEDGE. 

SCHEMA   II 
ORGANISM  OF  HUMAN  LIFE. 

SCHEMA   III 
ORGANISM  OF  DIVINE  LIFE. 


UNIVERSAL  SCHEMA 

SCHEMA  L— ORGANIC  IDEA  OF  HUMAN 

KNOWLEDGE. 

I.    Organism  of  Individual  Human  Knowledge. 

1.  Germ  =  Original  Experience,  both  Sensitive  and  Cogni- 

tive, in  Observation  of  Nature  (Divine  Education  of 
Human  Personality). 

2.  Matter  =  Personal   Percepts  of  Things  and   Kinds   in 

Nature  (Objective  Universality). 

3.  Method  =  Syllogistic    Process    (Necessary    Formation 

of    Personal   Concepts   as   Subjective   Universals   in 
Thought). 

4.  Form  =  Personal    Concepts   of    Things   and   Kinds   in 

Nature  (Subjective  Universality). 
6.  Fnd  =  Perfection  of  Personal   Concepts   as   Means   to 
Knowledge  (Intellectual  Ideal  as  Endless  Approxima- 
tion to  Truth) : 

a.  Immanent  End  =  To  perfect  Individual  Human 

Knowledge. 

b,  Exient  End  =  To  help  perfect  Universal  Human 

Knowledge. 


I' 


1/ 


<i 


340 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


II.  Okganism  op  Universal  Human  Knowledge. 

1.  Gei^in  =  Universal  Observation   of  Personal  Concepts 

in    Literature   (Perpetual   Sell-Education   of  Society 
through  Speech). 

2.  Matter  =  Personal  Concepts  of   Things  and   Kinds  in 

Nature  Communicated  through  Literature  (Subjective 
Universality). 

3.  Method  =  Syllogistic   Process   (C\j-operative  Formation 

of  Kace  Concepts  as  Subjective-Objective  Uuiversals 
in  Speech). 

4.  Fonn  =  Kace  Concepts  of  Things  and  Kinds  in  Nature 

Established  as  World-Science  in  Literature  through 

Consensus  of  the  Competent. 

6.   End  =  Perfection  of  Race  Concepts  as  Means  to  Life 

(Moral  Ideal  as  Endless  Approximation  to  Goodness): 

a.  Immanent  End  =  To  perfect  Universal  Human 

Knowledge. 
h,  Exient  End  =  To  help  perfect  Universal  Human 
Life. 

III.  Total  Organic  End  of  Human  Knowledge. 

a.  Immanent  End  =  Pursuit  of  Truth  for  its  own  Sake 
=  Intellectual  Perfection  of  Human  Life  =  World- 
Science. 

h.  Extent  End  =  Pursuit  of  Truth  for  the  Sake  of  its 
Uses  =  Moral  Perfection  of  Human  Life  =  World- 
Goodness. 

SCHEMA  IL— ORGANIC   IDEA   OF   HUMAN  LIFE. 
I.  Organism  of  Individual  Human  Life. 

1.  Germ  =  Immanent  Inherited  Personal  Idea  (Determina- 

tion of  Personality  by  Heredity). 

2.  Matter  =  Energy   Determined    as   Personal    Self-Con- 

sciousness in  Thought,  Feeling,  and  Action. 

3.  Method  =  Syllogistic  Process   (Free  Formation  of  Per- 

sonal Ideals  as  Subjective  Codes  of  Action  in  Personal 
Life). 


UNIVERSAL  SCHEMA  OF  OUGAJ^IC  PHILOSOPHY    341 

4.  Fo^*m  =  Person  as  Self-Determined  Life  in  Conduct  and 
Character  (Self-Determination  of  Personality  in  Lim- 
ited Freedom). 

6.  End  =  Perfection  of  Person  as  Means  to  Human  Society 
(Social  Ideal  as  Endless  Approximation  to  World- 
Brotherhood)  : 

a.  Immanent  End  =  To  perfect  Individual  Human 

Life. 

b,  Exient  End  =  To  help  perfect  Universal  Human 

Life. 

II.  Organism  of  Universal  Human  Life. 

1.  Genn  =  Immanent   Inherited  Social  Idea  (Determina- 

tion of  Society  by  Tradition  and  Historic  Heredity). 

2.  Matter  =  Persons  as  Self-Determined  Lives  Acting  and 

Reacting  on  Each  Other  in  Society. 

3.  3/(r?^//of/ =  Syllogistic  Process  (Co-operative  Formation  of 

Social  Ideals  as  Objective  Codes  of  Action  in   Social 
Life). 

4.  Form  —  Society  as  Self-Determined  Life  in  Race  Con- 

sciousness, Conduct,  and  Character  (Co-operative  De- 
termination of  Society  in  Limited  Freedom). 

5.  End  =  Perfection  of  Human  Society  as  Means  to  Divine 

Society  (Religious  Ideal  as  Endless  Approximation  to 
World-Religion) : 

a.  Immanent  End  =  To  perfect  Universal  Human 

Life. 

b,  Exient  End  =  To  help  perfect  Universal  Divine 

Life. 

III.  Total  Organic  End  of  Human  Life. 

a.  Immanent  End  =  Application  of   Truth  to  Service  of 

Man  =  Spiritual   Self-Evolution  of   Human   Life   in 
Human  Society  =  World-Brotherhood. 

b,  Exient  End  =  Application  of  Truth  to  Service  of  God 

=  Spiritual  Self-Devotion  of  Human  Life  to  Divine 
Life  =  World-Religion. 


n 


(If  I 


342 


THE  SYLLOGISTIC  PHILOSOPHY 


SCHEMA  III.  — ORGANIC  IDEA  OF  DIVINE  LIFE. 
I.   Organism  of  Nature  as  Individual  Finite  Life. 

1.  6^erm  =  Eternal  Self- Activity  of  Infinite  Reason  (Natura 

Naturans). 

2.  Matter  =  Determinate  Finite  Units  of  Energy  Individ- 

ualized out  of,  but  within,  Universal  Energy. 

3.  Method  =  Syllogistic  Process  (Eternal  Evolution  of  the 

Many  in  the  One  as  Finite  Units  and  Finite  Univer- 
sals  in  the  Infinite  Universal  Unit). 

4.  jtorni  =  Machines,  Organisms,  and  Persons,  as  Individ- 

ual Things  and  Universal  Kinds  in  Themselves  (Na- 
tura Naturata) . 

5.  l!!?id  =  Self-Realization  of  Divine  Ideal  as  Finite  Life 

in  the  Many : 

a.  Immanent  End  =  To  realize  Individual  Finite 

Life  in  the  Many  as  Nature's  End  in  Itself 
(Self-Evolution). 

b,  Exient  End  =  To  help  realize  Universal  Infinite 

Life  in  the  One  as  Nature's  End  above  itself 
(Self-Devotion). 

II.   Organism  of  Spirit  as  Universal  Infinite  Life. 

1.  Germ  =  Eternal  Necessity  of  Self-Existent  Being  (Ira- 

possibility  of  Absolute  Non-Being). 

2.  Matter  =  Infinite  Substance  in  Infinite  Essence,  or  Uni- 

versal Energy  of  Self -Existent  Being. 

3.  Method  =  Syllogistic  Process   (Eternal  Self -In  volution 

of  the  One  in  the  Many  as  Infinite  Unit  and  Infinite 
Universal,  and  Eternal  Self-Evolution  of  the  Many 
in  the  One  as  Finite  Units  and  Finite  Universals). 

4.  Form  =  Infinite  Essence  in  Infinite  Substance,  or  Uni- 

versal and  Eternal  Self-Consciousness  of  Self-Existent 
Being  as  Infinite  Machine,  Infinite  Organism,  and  In- 
finite Person. 

6.  Bfid  =  Self-Realization  of  the  Divine  Ideal  as  Infinite 

Life  in  the  One  and  Finite  Life  in  the  Many : 
a.  Immanent  End  =  To  realize  Universal  Infinite 


UNIVERSAL  SCHEMA  OF  ORGANIC  PHILOSOPHY    343 

Life  as  Eternal  Self-Involution  of  the  One  in 
the  Many  (Egoism). 
b,   Exient  End  =  To  help  realize  Individual  Finite 
Life  as  Eternal  Self-Evolution  of  the  Many  in 
the  One  (Altruism). 


III.     Total  Organic  End  of  Divine  Life. 

a.  Immanent  End  =  Eternal  Self-Realization  of  the  Infi- 

nite Ideal  =  Infinite  Holiness. 

b.  Exient  End  —  Eternal  Self-Devotion  to  the  Finite  Real 

=  Infinite  Love. 


Ill  I 


ht 


INDEX 


I. 


,lill' 


I'll 


III 


li 


'I 


HI 


ll 


INDEX 


The  Philosophemes  and  Tables  in  the  Appendix  are  not  included  in  this  Index. 


A,  and  Not-A,  I,  128-149;  II,  10, 
16,   195   note;  +  and  -    II,  178 
note,  184-188,  194,  198  ff.,  220. 
Absolute,  and   relative,  11,  78,  94, 
104,   17();    one  and   many,    121; 
catejjory,  278,  294. 
Absolute  I,  the,  I,  127  note;  as  uni- 
versal gnmnd,  II,  3,  8,  16,  24,  36; 
self-knowledge   of,   39;    rehition 
to  Being  and  Thought,  4r) ;  syllo- 
gizing, 60,  12:J,  131  ;  in  evolution, 
65,   68;    the   I  and   the   We   in, 
91  ;  summaries,  91,  94,  1()5;  unity 
and  universality  in,  100;  identity 
of    Nature   and    Spirit   in,    127; 
and   objective  relatiims,   149 ;   as 
knower,  159;  the  many  and  one 
in,  170;  free  deed  of,  172  ;  ossence, 
174;    scope,   235;  snminum    indi- 
oidiinm^    240 ;    necessary    Being, 
243;  eternal  equality  in,  245;  is 
the  Good,  262;  identity  of  j)roc- 
esses  in,  274;  ethical  All-1'crson, 
280,    287;    moral    relation    with 
human  I,  281 ;  relation  of  evil  to, 
282-285  ;  as  the  ( )ne  in  the  many, 
284  ;    in   the  absolute  syllogism, 
289-291,  298,  300. 

Absolute  rational  series,  I,  51-54, 
59-63. 

Absolute  syllogistic,  II,  234-238, 
287-296,  299,  306. 

Absolute  zero,  I,  297  ;  II,  252,  291. 

Abstract,  and  concrete,  I,  118-127; 
II,  104,  252 ;  idejis,  II,  54  note. 

AlKstraction,  II,  237,  238,  252;  ne- 
cessity of,  257. 

Accidents,  Aristotelian  theorv,  I, 
158-164;  criticism,  171-188; 'Dar- 
winian theory,  174,  175,  189-191  ; 
theories  compared,  191  If. ;  nature 
of,  199;  Fichte's  theory,  241  ;  as 
elements  of  evolution,  267. 


Act  of  knowledge,  I,  32,  45  ff. ;  56, 
75;    implies  two   functions,   107, 
108. 
Act  of  synthesis,  II,  16 ;  see  Apper- 
ception. 
Act  of  the  We,  1,116. 
Acting  and  Being,  II,  121-124,  127, 

242. 
Action,  and  reaction,  II,  122  ;  moral, 

162-173,  261-285. 
Activity,  in  modern  philosophy,  I, 
64,  93;  in  apperception,  106  note, 
109;  of  subject  and  object,   121- 
126;    in    hereditv,    207;    self-re- 
turning, of  Fichte,  235  ff.,  251  ff. ; 
synthetic,  of  Kant,  II,   16  ff . ;  in- 
dividual,   of    Leibnitz,    100;    re- 
lation   to    matter,    114-119;     to 
Being  and  energy,  121-123;  ethi- 
cal, 160-174;   and  purposes,  277, 
281. 
Actuality,  I,  5,    l.'J-15  ;   and   possi- 
bility, 22-35;  and  rational  neces- 
sity, 37,  49;    of   knowledge,  46, 
75 ;    and   experience,    55 ;    prius 
of,   194;  form  of,  206;  evolution 
gives,  II,  4;   in  the  syllogism,  5 
ff.,  41  ff.,  170;  and  the  ideal,  68- 
70,  89  ;  relation  to  energy,   1 06 ; 
and  potentiality,  156,  262.* 
Adaptation,  I,  207;  II,  239;  in  per- 
ception, 251  ;  and  evolution,  290. 
Adequate  cognition,  II,  252. 
Aetiology,  II,  68. 

Affirmation,  scope  of,  I,  3  ;  ground, 
4,  7  ff.,  46,  79;  the  rationallv  first, 
5  ;  self-grounded,  6  ff.,  18,  21,  30, 
59,79;  necessary,  10,  14;  indivi«l- 
ual  vs.  universal,  1 1  ;  relation  to 
doubt  and  negation,  16-21  ;  seri- 
ated, 25,  28  ;  relation  to  affirmer, 
33 ;  summary,  46  ff.,  76 ;  uu- 
worded,   48;    genus   of  all,    75; 


V'      \ 


V 


Lilt 


VI. 


iy>» 


348 


INDEX 


ground  of  true,  85 ;  in  the  syllo- 
gism, II,  13-16,  234. 

Affirmer,  the,  I,  33,  45-47,  55,  75. 

Agnosticism,  II,  78-91. 

Agreement  of  concept  and  object, 
I,  108,  124  ;  of  object  and  syllo- 
gism, II,  16,  37  ;  of  object  and 
percept-concept,  157. 

All-Person,  II,  69,  70,  90,  95,  105, 
118-121,  126,  262;  ethical,  279, 
280,  287  ;  the  world  as,  294. 

Altruism,  II,  265,  269. 

Analogy  between  knowledge  and 
life,  II,  253. 

Anaxagoras,  I,  164. 

Anaximander,  I,  164. 

Anaximenes,  I,  164. 

Antecedent  and  consequent,  II,  3, 
6,  16,34-37,  52-59;  in  evolution, 
60  ff.,  125;  in  Being,  68-70; 
summary,  132  ;  in  absolute  logic, 
234-260,  285-291,  295;  in  ethical 
evolution,  270  ff. 

Anthropomorphism,    II,  83,  86-89, 

287. 

Autisthenes,  I,  165-171,  185. 

Antithesis,  empirical,  I,  139;  table, 
142;  and  rational,  144-149;  root 
of,  150  ff. ;  irrational,  II,  I ;  rela- 
tion to  self-consciousness,  292. 

Apodeictic  regress,  I,  62,  77. 

Apodeicticity,  II,  7,  31-34,  39  ff., 
55-58, 179-182. 

Aposteriori  of  Being,  H,  155, 
156;  of  Knowledge,  158-160; 
of  Thought,  257. 

Appearance,  Plato's  theory,  I,  166- 
170;  see  Phaenomena. 

Apperception,  Kantian  theory,  I, 
97,  98,  102,  141 ;  meaninfr  of  term, 
106  note  ;  synthetic  unity  implied 
in  self-consciousness,  109;  generic 
unity  as  complement,  110;  per- 
sonal unity.  111;  tabular  sum- 
mary, 113;  genetically  explained, 
115;  generic  and  synthetic,  118, 
126, 141, 213 ;  relation  to  evolution 
of  consciousness,  133  ff.,  138,  144; 
Kantian  theory  of  transition  from, 
215-227 ;  Fichte's  criticism,  225 
ff . ;  the  result,  259  ;  the  Kantian 
deduction,  II,  16  ff.,  150-155  ;  ethi- 
cal relationships  of  generic,  II, 
161  ff.,  268,  275,  290  ;  in  transition 
to  the  We,  293  ;  synopsis,  298. 
Apprehension,  II,  248,  256,  260. 


A  priori t  and  a  posteriori,  I,  27,  60 ; 
II,   26,   59,  154-174;   knowledge, 
Kant's  view,   I,   36,  98,  116,  141, 
222  ;  concepts  and  categories,  41  ; 
Paulsen  on  the,  42  ;  self-criticism 
of  reason,  71  ff. ;  synthesis,  97  ;  un- 
derstanding, 98  ;  •'  pure  conscious- 
ness a  priori,"  102  note  ;  there  is 
no  "pure  knowledge,"  123;  activ- 
ity, in  Kantian  theory,  212;  judg- 
ments, II,  7, 12  note,  26  ;  Kant  on, 
15  note  ;  forms,   18,  59  ;  laws,  19, 
60 ;   relation  to  necessity,  24,  32 ; 
ontological  conditions,  27;  acts  of 
spontaneity,  28  ;  concepts,  35  note ; 
forms,  categories,   and   ideas,  46 ; 
"pure   syntheses,"  47  ff . ;  law  of 
syllogism,   54 ;    condition   of  the 
Absolute,  94  ;  relation  to  the  sul>- 
ject,   154  ;    moral  necessiti^,  161  ; 
spontaneous  moral  synthesis,  164  ; 
category  of  worth,  1*67  ;  unreality 
of  "  pure  knowledge,"  253. 
Apriori  of  Being,  relation  to  knowl- 
edge, 1, 194-196  ;  determines  Apri- 
ori  of    Thought,   206;    ultimate, 
underivtd,    210-213;  principle  of 
individuation,  II,  3;  basis  of  ne- 
cessity, 4-12 ;  includes  Apriori  of 
Thought,  13-16,39-41  ;  relation  to 
Kantian  deducti(»n,  16  ff. ;  deter- 
mines the  syllogism,  22,  33  ;  law 
of  unit-universals,  27-32,  35,  69, 
90 ;    condition  of  the   understjind- 
ing,  38  ;  relation  to  apodeicticity, 
39  ff.,  54-60;  is  the   necessity  of 
its  own  existence,   60 ;  organiza- 
tion    in    the    syllogism,    92-96  ; 
summary,  105;  ground   of  olijec- 
tive  inference,  124;  implied,  130, 
153-155;    relation   to  Apriori  of 
Thought    and    Knowledge,    149- 
157;  in  space  and  time,  155-157 ; 
and  the  Aposteriori,  158;  unorig- 
inated    conditiim   of    all    realiihr, 
159;  of  ethical  relations,  160  ff. ; 
summary,    166-174;    scope,   232; 
and   the    logical  axiom,  234;  on- 
tological   significance,    237;    and 
objective    relations,   238   ff . ;   full 
meaning,   242  ;   determines   syllo- 
gistic  movement,    243  ff. ;  episte- 
mological    applications,    245-259 ; 
illustration  of  the  necessity  deter- 
mined  by  it,  259;  as  Apriori  of 
Right,   270 ;    free  self-determina- 


INDEX 


349 


lion  under,  279;   relation  of  evil 
to,  284;  supreme  generalization, 
289. 
Apriori  of  the  Good,  see  the  Good. 
Apriori  of  Knowledge,  I,  211;  II, 

16,  40,  57,  157. 
Apriori  of  Moral  Being,  II,  160-174, 

201,  261-271,  278. 
Apriori  of  Right,  see  Right. 
Apriori  of  Thought  (see  Apriori  of 
Being),  as  minor  premise,  II,  16; 
relation  to  syllogism,  22,  31-40; 
unites  with  Apriori  of  Knowledge, 
57,  60;   in   Syllogism  of  Knowl- 
edge, 92  ff. ;  ontological  relations, 
153 ;    relation   to  necessity,  237, 
241,  256;  to  Aposteriori  of  Being 
and  Thought,  256-258;  to   com- 
prehension, 260. 
Apriori  of  Truth,  II,  247,  270. 
Apriorism,  in  modern  thought,  I,  26, 
36,  40-44  ;  II,  94 ;  Kantian,  I,  72, 
141,  212;  II,  150-155. 
Arnauld,  I,  82  note. 
Aristotelian  Paradox,  the,  Kant  and, 
I,  105  ;  genesis  of,  150  ff. ;  stated, 
1 63  ;  as  a  compromise,  1 68 ;  rela- 
tion to  Darwin,  1 75,  J  89,  200  note ; 
defects,  183  ff.;  results,  204;  re- 
versed,  21 1  ;   relation   to   Fichte, 
225,   233,   238-260;   failure,  259; 
relation  to  Hegel,  261-275,  290- 
309 ;  basis,  264 ;  relation  to  inhe- 
rence, 265  ff. ;  culmination,  II,  1  ; 
compared  with  Kant's  theory  of 
knowledge,    132   ff. ;    limitations, 
176  ;  consequences,  291  ;  reforma- 
tion, 295. 
Aristotelianism,  the  core  of,  II,  133. 
Aristotle,  relation   to  philosophical 
ideal,  I,  3 ;  on  whole  and  parts, 
54,  163;  on  immediate  syllogism, 
63 ;  on  judgment,  86  note ;   doc- 
trine   of    immediate    knowledge, 
122  note;  Prantl  on   his  theory 
of  negation,  130  note;  theory  of 
universals,    145 ;     his    form    and 
matter,   145,  153,  158;  Zeller  on 
his  system,  150;  theory  of  univer- 
sals examined,  150  ff . ;  Zeller  on 
the    universals,   151 ;    theory    of 
specific   difference  and  accidents, 
152,  158;  theory  of  the  individual, 
153;    theory   of  God,    153,   156; 
psychology,   1.54,    163;  theory  of 
personality,  155  ;  relation  to  Plato, 


156  ;  theories  summarized,    1 57  ; 
cited  on  accidents,  158  note;  the 
"individual"   merely    numerical, 
159  ;  on  the  individual,  160  note  ; 
theory  of  perception,  161 ;  on  per- 
ception, and  universals,  161  note; 
Zeller's  summary,  162 ;  the  para- 
dox,   163,  see    also    Aristotelian 
Paradox;  "unresolved   dualism," 
164;    cited    on   Antisthenes,    166 
note ;  his  concept-philosophy,  168 ; 
fundamental  principle,  168;  criti- 
cism   of    Platonic    "separation," 
169;    his  "matter"  unknowable, 
169 ;    separates  empirical   I  and 
rational  I,  170;  dismisses  individ- 
ual   difference,    171  ;    theory    of 
accidents  discussed,  172-188;  re- 
lation to  Kantian  theory  of  space 
and  time,  173  note  ;  theory  of  evo- 
lution, 173;  tlie  change  wrought 
by   Darwin,   174,  175;  theory   of 
perception  controverted,  176,  178; 
cited    on    perception,    176    note; 
holds  that  each  species  is  unique, 
179;  failure  of  his  theory  of  uni- 
versals, 184  ;  his  compromise,  185  ; 
refuted  by  Darwin,  186;  truth  in 
his  theory,    187;   the   Darwinian 
revolution,    189-191  ;  doctrine   of 
"pure  thinking"  a  compromise, 
192;  fundamental  error,  193  ;  cor- 
rected,  202;  logically  completed, 
209 ;  summarized,  261  ;  Zeller  on 
his  relation  to  Plato,  263;   com- 
pared with  Hegel,  270  ff. ;  results 
of  his  philosophy,  II,  1  ;  his  ideal, 
45 ;  wavering  theory  of  substance, 
114;  theory  of  form  and  matter 
compared  with  Kant's,  133  ff. ;  his 
realistic     formula,     143 ;    Ethics 
cited,  160  note;  on  necessity,  166 
note;  discovery  of  the  syllogism, 
1 76 ;  Prantl  on,  1 77  note ;  sophis- 
tic, 195  note;  on  perception,  250; 
conception  of  theology,  288. 

Artificer,  II,  77. 

Association  of  ideas,  II,  7,  9,  158. 

Atomists,  the,  I,  164. 

Atoms,  I,  201;    II,  116   note,  117, 
122,  240. 

Auftielten,  II,  218-222,  230. 

Augustine,  I,  82  note. 

Authority,  moral,  II,  261. 

Autonomv,  II,  261. 

Axiom  of  logic,  the,  II,  234. 


m'^ 


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Ml  ) 

t      i 


I'iMi 


i 


350 


INDEX 


Axiom  of  Philosophy,  the,  I,  8,  63, 
66  ff.,  75  ff. ;  its  scope,  176;  see 
also  Knowledge. 

Babe,  consciousness  of  the,  I,  134 

ff.,  146. 
Bacon,  I,  64. 

Bad,  the,  II,  261,  270;  see  also  Evil. 
Beauty,  relation  to  Right  and  Truth, 

11,261. 
Becoming,  the  reason  of,  I,  53 ;  as 
rational  process,  II,  156 ;  law  of, 
173;  Hegel's  view,  184  ff.,  226. 
Bet/riff,  the,  see  Hegel,  also  Con- 
cept-philosophy ;  and  Anschauung, 
II,  12  note. 
Being,  relation  to  philosophy,  I,  1 ; 
relation  to  Thought,  38  ff.,  59  ff., 
76,  107   (cf.  II,  45) ;   differenced 
identity  with  Thought,  59,  62,  77  ; 
ultimate  categories  of,  177 ;  itrins, 
see  Apriori  of ;  ahsolute,  209 ;  the 
All- Being,  210  ff. ;  three  types  of 
real,  307 ;    evolution  of,  II,  2-4, 
see  also  Evolution  ;  basis  of  epis- 
temology,  3 ;  relation  to  the  syllo- 
gism, 5  ff.,  55,  59;  possibility  of, 
13  ;  primordial   relations,   13   ff. ; 
syllogism  of,  36.  59-91,  105,  122, 
132  ;   Apriori  of  Being  immanent 
in,  45  ;    ultimate   princi])le8,   68 ; 
organization  in,  92  ff. ;  theories  of 
independent,   96-104;    dependent 
and  independent,  104;  relation  to 
energv,  118  ff . ;  acting  and,  121- 
124,  127,  242;  realistic  theory  of, 
143;  ultimate  relations,  155-174; 
snmmum   (jenus,    173;   relation   to 
Doing   and    Knowing,   173,   232, 
235, 245,  282-289  ;  cosmic  process, 
237  ;  trichotomy,  238-250 ,  objec- 
tive  conditi(ms,   242  ;    immanent 
necessity,  242 ;  and  relating,  243  ; 
quantity,  244;  conser>ati<m,  245; 
as  thinking,  247;  the   What   in, 
251  ;    the  Good  as  supreme  end, 
261;     relational     equation,    262; 
summary   of  meanings,  279;   re- 
lation to  evil,  284  ;  comprehensive 
summary,  285  ff. ;  synopsis,  297. 
Beneke,  II,  234. 

Berkeley,  II,  107  note,  133, 148, 252. 
Bernard,  Claude,  II,  64. 
Best,  the,  II,  239. 
Biology,  II,  68,  120,  276. 
Body  and  soul,  see  Soul. 


Bradley,  F.  H.,  II,  78  note. 
Buddhism,  II,  267. 

*'  Cannot  bo  otherwise,"  IT,  39-60, 
131,  155-168,  sec  also  Necessity; 
of  the  Good,  163  ff.,  261 ;  of  the 
syllogism,  270. 
Canons  of  the  syllogism,  II,  33. 
Categorical  imjjerative,  II,  261. 
Catogories,in  German  idealism,  1, 40; 
ultimate,  177;  Kantian  deduction 
of,  II,  16  ff.  ;  immanent  principle 
of,  235  ;  absolute,  278,  294,  329. 
Causality,  relation  to  ground,  I,  32 
ff.,  45*;  man  as  cause-ground,  46 
ff. ;  causal  series,  51 ,  59 ;  causa  sni, 
52,  59,  77  ;  causal  regress,  52-54 ; 
individual,  56;   man  as  efficient, 
59  ;  and  machine,  307  ;  mechanical 
and   tcleological,  II,  65-91,  117; 
ultimate,   68;    single    cause    and 
groups,    69;    Spencer's    uncondi- 
tioned, 71  ;  criticism,  73  ff. ;  causal 
c<mncctiou.  73  ;  Spt^ncor's  ritimato 
Cause  criticised,  82  ff. ;  Spinoza's 
causa  sui,  98 ;  energy  as  mechani- 
cal, 113-115,  117  ;  and  "  pure  rea- 
son,"   169;   moral,    170-174;   law 
of,  238;  relation  to  teleology,  239, 
243;  w«)rld-will  as,  279  ;  union  with 
personalitv,  287. 
Certainty,  I,'3  ff.,  17-22, 6.5,  82  note  ; 

see  also  A[)odeicticity. 
Chance,  II,  168,  241. 
Character,  II,  70,  172,  239,  266,  289, 

298,  304. 
Choice,  II,  164,  261  ff.;  of  ideals,  271. 
Christian  saint,  II,  267. 
Civilization,  conditions  of,  II,  269. 
Classes,  logical,  I,  129  ff.,  138;  11, 

30,  234. 
Classification,  II,  3,  158,  237. 
Clifford,  I,  220. 

Co-existence,  I,  39;  IT,  148,  284. 
Cofjitn,  (Tffo  sum,   as    beginning    of 
philo.sophy,  I,  11,  17,  65  ll!,  78  ff . ; 
analyzed,  79  ff . ;  its  parts  di.stin- 
guished,  86;   Reiff  on,  89   note; 
Hegel  on,  89  note;  Descartes  on, 
91 ;   result  of  criti<ism,  91 ;  as  a 
formula,  II,  102;  Noire  on,  292. 
Cognition,  essence  of,  11,  5,8,159;  re- 
ality and  truth,  16;  see  Knowledge. 
Cognitive  relations,  II,  157. 
Cohen,  1,41. 
Colding,  II,  120. 


INDEX 


351 


Color  and  form,  I,  29  ;  11,  94. 

Combination,  in  Kantian  theory,  I, 
97  note,  102  note;  II,  17  ff.;  see 
Apperception. 

Command,  etiiical,  II,  161  ff. 

Common  sense,  1,  1. 

Comprehension,  II,  248,  260. 

Concept,  agreement  with  object,  I, 
86  note,  108,  119;  relation  to  the 
I.  107;  and  percept.  111,  see  a\so 
Tercept-concept;  when  perfect,  119, 
123  J  concrete,  120-127;  present 
theory  distinguished  from  Hegel's, 
120  note;  origin,  121  ff.;  ciiaraeter, 
121,189;  Platonictheory,  151;  Aris- 
totle's, 151  ff.,  192;  Antisthenes', 
165-1 7 1 ;  relation  to  iMjrception,  177, 
195  ff.;  to  essence,  194;  validitv, 
195;  individual,  199;  Hegel  oil, 
265,  270 ;  revolution  in  theory  of, 
269;  in  the  syllogism,  1 1,30,  33-38, 
129;  of  the  cosmo.s,  69 ;  mechan- 
ical, 76  ;  Kantian,  140;  relation  to 
genus  and  species,  238;  to  ideas 
and  percepts,  246-256,  286 ;  evolu- 
tion and  involution  of,  251  ff . ; 
limitations,  252. 

Concept-philosophy,  tlie,  its  failure, 
I,  159,  185,  Sokratic,  165;  Aris- 
totelian, 168,  184-187, 192  ;  Graco- 
German,  213;  |)rineijde  of,  234 
note  2 ;  changes  in,  263;  core,  264; 
overthrow,  269  ff. ;  defect,  275. 

Conception,  relation  to  perception,  I, 
107,  177,  196,  206;  in  the  Syllo- 
gism, II,  4,  160. 

Conceptivity,  II,  256. 

Conceptualism,  I,  204 ;  II,  246,  252. 

Conclusion,  nature  of  the,  II,  5,  8, 
16,  30  ff.,  57,  125,  130,  228;  pos- 
sibility of  a,  160,  179. 

Concrete,  nature  of  the,  I,  118-127, 
197  ;  II,  104,  252;  syllogism,  239. 

Concretion,  II,  222,  228. 

Condicio  sine  ijua  uon,  II,  4,  35. 

Condition,  of  rationality,  1, 3  ff. ;  and 
conse(iuence,  1 3, 34-40, 5 1 ,  53,  1 32 ; 
immanent  necessary,  38;  relation 
to  causality,  52,  .53 ;  God  as  ulti- 
mate, 65 ;  *'  I  think  "  as,  97  ;  uncon- 
ditional, of  self-consciousness,  108; 
of  knowledge,  194;  and  the  un- 
condititmed,  II,  4-16 ;  and  ontolog- 
ical  relations,  13-16,  40,  149;  of 
the  syllogism,  35,  53-60,  193;  of 
necessity,  45;  of  all  reality,  159; 


and  the  conditioned,  260 ;  see  also 
Ground. 
Conditioned  relations,  U,   155-162 

171. 
Conditions,  regress  to,  I,  45 ;  II,  3 ; 
causes  and,  1,  53;  of  Being  and 
Thought,  II,  13;  ontologically  a 
priori^  27;  of  knowledge  and  ex- 
istence, 28 ;  of  consciousness,  59  ; 
immutable,  156;  relations,  things 
and,  238  ff . ;  objectivity  of,  242 
ff.  ;  absolute  and  universal,  259 : 
ethical,  261  ff. 
Conduct,     syllogism     of,     II,     69; 

ground,  90;  standard,  161,  265. 
Confucianism,  II,  267. 
Conn,  H.  VV.,  II,  125. 
Connotation,  1, 129. 
Conscience,  II,  161  ff.,  268,  280. 
Consciousness,  characteristics  of,  I, 
46  ;  modes  of,  64  ;  scope,  67  ;  self- 
certainty  of,  82  note;  relation  to 
"the   i,"   93  ff. ;    as  a  universal, 
96;    emj)irical,   98;    "pure",  102 
note  ;  a  jniori,  105  note ;  origin  of 
personal,  112,  117,  144;  (iod-,  127 
note;    racial,  see    h'ace-conscions- 
ness ;  my-  and   another-,    133  ff., 
144,    146;    and   the    uncoiisci«)Us, 
133;  of  the  babe  and  mother,  134 
ff.  ;    ])ersonal,    136,   144 ;    of   Ims- 
band  and  wife,  137  ;  general  and 
narticular,  142;  antithesis  of,  144; 
Kantian   theorv,   215  ff.,  see  also 
Kant;  Fichtes,  227  ff. ;   Hegel's, 
see  Hegel ;  universal,  II,  24 ;  con- 
ditions of,   59;  permanence,   119. 
see  also  Immortality;  ethical,  161 
ff.,  275  ;  ♦•  states  of,"  237  ;  spiritual, 
275 ;  elements   of  personal,  290 ; 
transitions  in,  292. 
Consequence,  relation  to  ground,  I, 
14,  61  ;  necessary,  34, 37  ;  progress 
to,  II,  2  ff. ;  see  Antecedent,  also 
Condition. 
Conservation  of  Being,  II,  245. 
Constitution,  organic,  1,67;  11,92; 

see  also  Relational  con.stitution. 
Content,  identical  with  f^round,  I,  6, 
8,  11,  14  ff. ;  of  empirical  judg- 
ment, 9,  13,  16;  individual,  11; 
relaticm  to  denial,  18-21  ;  relation 
to  endless  regress,  25, 31 ;  relation 
to  form,  29  ;  relation  to  identity, 
30;  diagram  of  ground  and,  31; 
regress  of,  44 ;  affirms  ground,  47 ; 


M' 


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•  lik 


'fit 


b;ii 


8 


352 


INDEX 


relation  to  judgment,  55 ;  sum- 
mary, 60 ;  relation  to  axiom,  76 ; 
of  the  syllogism,  II,  8;  ultimate 
relationships,  159  ;  empirical,  249 ; 
and  form  in  perception,  251. 

Contingency,  11,  3,  156-172,  241. 

Continnitv,  in  race-consciousness.  I, 
135  ;  of  energy,  II,  122  ;  of  Being, 
237-243;  of  reason,  244,  253;  of 
life,  274-282. 

Contract,  II,  162  ff. 

Contradiction,  1, 17  ff.,  148  note  ;  law 
of,  II,  15;  Hegel's  theory,  177- 
227  ;  the  syllogistic  principle,  228- 
231  ;  ethical,  271. 

Contrast  and  resemblance,  I,  134, 
note. 

Copernicus  and  Kant,  I,  65  ;  II,  139. 

Copula,  II,  33. 

Corpuscle.  II,  117,240. 

Corruption,  II,  269. 

Cosmic,  law  and  process,  11,  60-70, 
132,  235,  237,  see  Evolution  ;  syl- 
logism, 123,  245  ;  process  of  infer- 
ence, II,  124. 

Casmos  (see  Universe,  also  World), 
as  All-Person,  11,95,  126. 

Creation,  II,  244. 

Creativencss,  moral,  II,  164,  262. 

Criterion  of  philosophy,  I,  6,  66-68, 
74-78  ;  self-groundedness  as,  7, 33, 
78-80,  84  ff. ;  self-certainty,  82 
note,  92 ;  II,  101 ;  of  truth,  232 ; 
moral,  265  ff.;  see alst»  Objectivity. 

Criticism,  1,2,6,7,  15,66-75. 

Course  of   Nature,  the,  II,  60,  67, 

105,  124,  127,  156  ;  is  syllogism  of 

Being,  160,  243 ;  is  free  deed  of 

the  Absolute,  172. 

Custom,  and    association  of  ideas, 

II,  9. 
Cuvier,  I,  191. 

Darwin,  "  advantageous  variation  " 
as  beginning  of  philosophical  revo- 
lution, I,  159,  174  ff.,  186,  189- 
191,  214,  265,  268,  293;  relation 
to  Aristotle,  169,  174,  189,  200 
note  ;  his  significance,  204 ;  prob- 
lems unsolved,  II,  125. 

Death,  II.  119,  276-282;  regarded 
as  an  evil,  284. 

Deduction,  Kantian,  II,  17  ff . ;  of 
the  svUogisni,  132  ;  as  employed 
by  rationalism,  175;  relation  to 
induction,  254. 


Deed,  as  proof  of  knowledge,  I,  75  ; 
in  the  syllogism,  II,  69;  moral, 
162-173;   free,   of  the   Absolute, 
172;    and    ideal,    262;    evolution 
and  involution  of  ethical,  270  ff. ; 
realization  of,  286;  as  judgment, 
287. 
Definition,  I,  199-202. 
Demokritos,  I,  164. 
Demonstration,  I,  21   ff.,  58,  68  ff. ; 
II,  34,  179-182,  195  note  ;  of  (iod, 
173,    245;    limitations    of,    258; 
"whole  force  of/'  259. 
Denial,  1,18-22,  194,  234;  see  also 

Negation. 
Denotation,  I,  129,  130  note. 
Dependent  Being,  II,  96-105. 
Descartes,  on  the  natural  light,  I,  4  ; 
criticism  of   his  use  of  doubt  as 
first  principle,  17,  81  ;  founder  of 
rationalism,    64   ff. ;    relation    to 
Augustine,  82  note;   a  conceptu- 
alistic  nominalist,  84  note  (7) ;  on 
the  self,  91  ;  theory  of  substance, 
II,    96;    subjectivism,    102.     See 
also  Coifito,  ergo  sum. 
Design,  11,  125-127;  see  also  Tele- 
ology. 
Determinations,  I,  129. 
Determinism,  II,  165,  262. 
Dialectic,  produces  the  object  out  of 
itself,  I,  40,  09 ;  relation  to  nega- 
tion, 130  note  ;  see  Method. 
Difference,  relation  to  identity,  1, 29, 
39,  61,  109;    relation    to    knowl- 
edge, 38  ;   relation  to  universals, 
39  ;  Aristotelian  theory,  152,  157  ; 
specific,  157;  individual,  159   ff., 
163   175  ff.,  193,  199-202,  264  ff.  ; 
reific.  1 75 ;  Hegel's  theory,  272  ff . ; 
personal,  II,  1,  289,  294;  identity 
in,  92  ff. ;  dependence  on  identity, 
121  ;    Aristotelian    and    Kantian 
theories    compared,    133   ff . ;    Jic- 
quired    in    the  species,  239 ;  indi- 
vidual difference  cannot  be  wholly 
abstracted,  252. 
Ding  an  sich,  see  Thing  in  itself. 
Discovery,  scientific,  II,  253. 
Disease,  II,  284. 
Division,  logical,  I,  128  ff. 
Dogmatism,  I,  10,  20;  II,  190. 
Doing  vs.  Being,  see  Being  ;  as  dut^, 
II,  266  ;  right  and  wrong,  28^J  fi; ; 
in  syllogism  of  syllogisms,  287. 
Double-constitution    of     object    of 


INDEX 


353 


knowledge,  I,  107, 175  ;  of  the  know- 
ing process,  207. 

Doubt,  I,  16,  17,  65  ff.,  81,  82  note, 
194;  regarding  external  world, 
146-148. 

Dualism,  in  personal  life,  I,  136; 
Aristotelian,  1.54, 162  ff. ;  Platonic, 
1 56  f!'. ;  of  sense  and  intellect,  1 65 ; 
Greek,  166,  185;  Kantian,  186, 
204  ff. ;  Hegelian,  315  ;  Cartesian, 
II,  96  ;  Spinozistic,  99 ;  of  matter 
and  mind,  126;  of  independent 
worlds,  294. 

Duties,  II,  268. 

Duty,  II,  160-174,  232;  in  the  syllo- 
gism, 261  ;  justice  covers  all,  269; 
18  endless,  274. 

Dynamism,  II,  127. 

Each  of  the  We,  I,  119-121,  125. 

Eclecticism,  I,  147,  173,  2a3. 

Effect,  see  Causality. 

Efticiency,  I,  45,  52,  56;  II,  99,  169 
note,  238  ff. ;  see  also  Causality. 

Ego,  the,  91  ff. ;  equational  diagram, 
100;  origin,  115  ff. ;  absolute,  127 
note;  and  Non-Ego,  128  ff . ;  re- 
lation to  the  We,  133 ;  unity 
of,  134;  empirical  theory,  140; 
rationalistic,  141  ;  table  of  antith- 
eses, 142;  conclusions,  144;  see 
also  the  I. 

Egoism,  II,  265,  269. 

Either  —  or,  of  Hegel,  II,  178  note, 
195  note,  198,  209,  227. 

Ejects,  I,  220. 

Eleatics,  the,  I,  164. 

Emerson,  I,  200  note ;  II,  234,  65, 
267,  270,  273. 

Emotionalism,  II,  266. 

Empedocles,  I,  164. 

Empirical  antithesis,  I,  139,  142. 

Empirical  1,  see  the  I. 

Empiricism,  l)eginnings  of,  I,  64  ff. ; 
of  Hume,  95  ;  union  with  ration- 
alism, 118;  following  Hume,  140; 
defect  of,  147  ;  failure,  204  ;  II,  1  ; 
denies  necessity,  7-10, 13  ;  method, 
175;  Hegel  on,  192. 

End  (see  Teleology),  II,  239,  243  ; 
in  scientific  method,  253  ;  ethical, 
261  ff. 

Endless  regress,  see  Regress. 

Energy,  knowing,  I,  32  ff.,  45,  109; 
sel^existent,  52;  and  reason,  53 
note  (of.  II,  106) ;  individual,  56  ; 

VOL.  II.  —  23 


ultimate,  59.  62,  74,  77,  209  ff. ; 
in  the  syllogism,  II,  14,  28;  syllo- 
gism of,  62  note ;  cosniical,  65- 
70,  91  ;  Spencer's  "  infinite  and 
eternal,"  80,  244;  irrational.  90; 
relation  to  substance  and  thought, 
105-115  ;  to  matter,  114;  theories 
of  Ostwald  and  others,  116;  re- 
lation to  mind,  117;  correlated 
systems,  118;  soul  as  system  of 
spiritual,  119  ;  all  natural  energies 
one,  120;  nature  of,  121-123:  re- 
lation to  cosmic  reason,  123-132; 
tabular  summary,  144;  in  Kan- 
tian theory,  14.5-148;  summary  of 
relationships,  149  ;  the  one  Reason- 
Energy,  156-160,235;  Trendelen- 
burg on  relation  to  reason,  224; 
law  of  units  of,  240;  substance 
as,  242  ;  metamorphosis  of,  244  ; 
equality  with  reason,  245;  the 
will  as,  261,  271. 

Entelechy,  I,  157. 

Environment,  II,  64  ff . ;  the  sub- 
ject and  its,  263  ff. ;  of  the  ethical 
person,  280. 

Episteniology,  of  modern  philoso- 
phy, I,  64  ff.  ;  of  Descartes,  and 
Augustine,  82  note  ;  bjisis  of  scien- 
tific, 87,  206  ff. ;  of  pure  concepts, 
102  note  (3);  empirical,  140;  ra- 
tionalistic, 141  ;  of  Sokrates,  165; 
of  Plato,  166;  of  Aristotle,  168; 
ultimates  of,  177  ;  in  modern 
speculation,  185,  see  Concept-phi- 
losophy ;  grounded  on  ontology, 
II,  3  ff.,  128,  see  Apriori  of  Being ; 
Kantian,  18,  46  ff. ;  of  agnosticism, 
78  ff.,  103;  of  objectivism  and 
Kant,  132-155  ;  possibility  of,  148, 
156;  epistemological  relations, 
157-160;  in  the  syllogism,  171; 
identity  with  ethics  and  ontology, 
229 ;  fundamental  truth,  245 ;  law.s, 
251  ;  character,  264 ;  cla.ssifio'l, 
287  ;  synopsis,  297-305  ;  see  ideal- 
ism, also  Realism. 

Equality,  moral,  II.  265,  268.  278. 

Equation,  in  the  byllogisni,  ily  5,  16, 
33. 

Equation  of  relations,  XI,  243  ff., 
262. 

Erdmann,  I,  92 ;  II,  224. 

Error,  I,  87  ;  II,  14-16,  43,  157,  247  ; 
see  also  Fallacy. 

Essence,   class,    I,    120;   Aristotle's 


il'iii 


li  ^.1' 


'11 


^(1^ 


354 


INDEX 


theory,  150  fF.,  160, 167, 1 71  ;  theo- 
ries compared,  171  ff. ;  three  kinds, 
187-193,  267  ;  relation  to  concept, 
194;  and   unit-universal,   202;  in 
the  syllogism,  II,  14,  29  ff.,  41 ;  as 
Reason  and  God,  70 ;    relation  to 
substance,  96-105, 111-115;  to  en- 
ergy and  reason,  122-127  ;  tabular 
summary,  144 ;  summary  of  rela- 
tionships, 149,  239  ff. ;  as  reason, 
242  ;  relation  to  perception,  248 ; 
conceptual,  251  ;  common,  252  ;  as 
world-intellect,  279  ;  of  the  I,  289. 
Eternity,   nunc  stans   of,   I,   52;    of 
cosmos,  II,  2,  68 ;  of  the  All,  262. 
Ethical,  truth,  I,  87  note ;  worth,  II, 
86  ;  relations,  160-174, 193  ;  intui- 
tion,  261  ;  rednctio   ad  absnrdumj 
264  ;  wisdom,  265  ;  idealism,  266  ; 
individualism,   267 ;    equation   of 
.  the   I  and    We,   268 ;  barbarism, 
272  note;  process,  274-282;  evil, 
283 ;  see  Moral. 
Ethicality,  relation  to  personality,  I, 
307;  II,  85-88;  to  necessity,  45; 
to  cosmic  process,  68-70  ;  as  ulti- 
mate  principle,   91  ;     relation   to 
future  life,  119,274-282;  relation 
to  knowledge,    150;   teleological, 
239 ;  union  with  fiuadity  in  person- 
ality, 287. 
Ethics,  necessity  in,  II,  45;  as  tele- 
ology, 68  ;  scientific,  162  ;  will  in, 
163,   identity   with  epistemology, 
229,  235  ;  fundamental  truth,  263  ; 
hedonism  in,  265  ;  ground  of  scien- 
tific, 267  ;  two  branches,  269  ;  laws 
summarized,  270  ;  classified,  287  ; 
synopsis,  297,  304. 
Eudaemonism,  II,  265-267. 
Everything    vs.   something,   I,    130 

note. 
Evil,  Hegel  on,  I,  295,  298  note,  302, 
314-316;  of  suffering,  II,  120; 
and  the  Good,  261-263,  271  ;  ethi- 
cal and  natural,  282-285. 
Evolution,  as  principle  of  explana- 
tion, I,  115. 175, 184  ;  of  conscious- 
ness, 135  ff.,  145;  logical  order, 
138 ;  in  space  and  time,  173  ;  rela- 
tion to  accidents  and  species,  174 
ft. ;  conditions  knowledge,  207  ; 
process  of,  207, 255  ;  aspects  of,  and 
involution,  II,  2-4  ;  in  the  syllo- 
gism, 36,  57-60;  in  Being  and 
Thought,   59;    Spencer's  theory, 


60-64;  illustration  of  the  acorn, 
63;  of  life,  64;  creative  idea  in, 
64,  124,  127  ;  criticism  of  Sjiincer, 
64,  66,  72-91  ;  organic,  66-69  :  in 
cosmic  process,  70  ;  without  invo- 
lution, 98,  244  ;  relation  to  ethical 
ideal,  119;  to  energy,  121  ff.;  of 
genera  and  species,  123-131  ;  Conn 
cited  on,  125;  unsolved  jjroblenis 
of,  126;  error  of  mechanical  evo- 
lutionism, 127;  ground  in  A  priori 
of  Being,  155  ;  in  ethical  relations, 
160-174;  in  philos(»phical  system, 
234  ff. ;  of  species  and  specimens, 
238,  239 ;  and  potentiality,  242 ; 
of  concepts  and  percepts,  251 
ff. ;  of  deeds  and  pur])oses,  270 
ff.  ;  of  energy  in  reason,  279 ;  of 
the  spiritual  out  of  the  natural, 
280  ;  of  the  many,  289 ;  of  the  I 
through  the  We,  290 ;  and  adapta- 
tion, 291  ;  in  absolute  syllogism, 
293-295  ;  synopsis,  306. 
Evolutionism,  defects   of,   II,  2,  60 

ff.,  127. 
Excluded  mi.ldle,  II,  178,  180,  195 

note,  198  ff.,  209,  223,229. 
Existence,  of  human  knowledge,  I, 
8  ff.,  35,  47,  76,  80;    relation  to 
doubt,  17;  to  actuality  and  ]u)ssi- 
bility,  22-26;  units  and  universals 
of,  38  ft*. ;  is  alhrmation  of  knowl- 
edge, 47  ;  of  man,  47, 56  ;  of  rca.'^on, 
53;   of   the   world,    65;    sunniium 
i/t'uits,    129;   relation  to  m'«:ati«»n, 
129  ff . ;  condition  of.  185;  mean- 
ing and   prius,   193-202;   uni(|ue, 
200  note;  determines  knowkMJge, 
206;    equntional    summary,   208; 
ultimate     condition,     210;     logic 
grounded  in,  II.  3,  8,  15.  28,  39; 
unconditioned    Form,  36;    is  the 
absolute  prius  of  thought,  40,  45 ; 
summarv,  60;  knowledge  of,  148 
ff. ;    as   unit-universal,    237,   240 ; 
couse<iuent  to  thought,  244;  rela- 
tion to  evil,  284  ;  tricliotomy,  297  ; 
see  Being. 
Experience,  as  ground  of  reason,  I, 
3,  74 ;  as  content  of  first  ju<lgment, 
9,  13;  as  ba.sis  of  judgment  and 
knowledge,  13,  22  ff. ;  possibility 
of,  26 ;  as  actuality,  27 ;  identical 
with  reason,  34   ff.,  45;  Hi)ecula- 
tively  sundered  from  reiison,  36, 
40-44,  64  ff.,    104,    165,   185,  215 


INDEX 


355 


(cf.  II,  94) ;  proof  of  identity,  37 ; 
defined  as  knowledge  of  particu- 
lars, 38  ;  distinguished  Irom  rea- 
son, 39  (cf.  II,  5);  as  given,  41  ; 
summary,  44 ;  as  a  universal, 
55 ;  germinal  fact,  74 ;  inner,  82 
note ;  object  of,  86  note,  see  also 
Object;  relation  to  real  self,  107; 
to  reason,  in  table,  114;  in  Kantian 
doctrine,  116;  as  explanation  of  the 
self,  117;  perceives  units,  178;  in- 
separable from  reason,  191  ;  plii- 
losopliy  of  pure,  II,  1  ;  relation  to 
the  syllogism,  4  ff.,  33,  37  ;  gives 
the  conditioned,  8;  immediate,  129, 
248-260 ;  cpisteinological  place, 
158  ff.,  171  ;  attempted  exclusion, 
223,  253  ;  iis  sensation  and  percep- 
tion, 249  ff. ;  last  appeal,  257  ;  in- 
communicable, 294. 

Explicit  and  implicit,  II,  243. 

Extension  and  intension,  I,  267,  269; 
II,  29  ff  ,  34,  287. 

Extension  (spatial)  and  thought,  II, 
96-100. 

External  world,  in  Cartesian  system, 
1.65;  problem  of,  146-148;  11,292; 
and  internal,  293,  308. 

Fact,  I,  9-13,  36,  44-48 ;  reason  as 
eternal,  .53 ;  the  one  given,  67 ; 
germinal  fact  of  ex])erience,  74  ; 
of  knowledge,  76,  80;  of  thought 
and  knowledge,  87 ;  evolution 
gives  actnal,  11,  4;  in  reasoning, 
4  ff.,  31;  ultimate,  45;  thought 
and,  244 ;  in  induction,  254  ;  abso- 
lute, 289. 

Faculty,  knowing,  I,  207,  208. 

Falckenberg,  I,  40  note,  88  note. 

Fallacy,  II,  27-32, 35  note,  165 ;  ethi- 
cal, 263,  267,  271. 

Faraday,  II.  116  note,  120. 

Fate,  li,  168,  241. 

Feeling,  1, 3,  1 2,  38,  46, 1 1 7  ;  II.  240 ; 
and  moral  Jiction,  263-266,  271 ;  as 
a  gootl,  278. 

Fichte,  relation  to  philosophical 
ideal.  I,  3 ;  on  ground  of  thought, 
4  note ;  on  demonstration,  22  note  ; 
Paulsen  on,  42  ;  on  first  postulate, 
80  note;  on  unity  of  the  I,  110 
note;  on  Ego  and  Non-Ego,  128 
note,  144 ;  and  the  concept-phi- 
losophy, 170;  on  perception,  177 
note;  on  inner  intuition,  219  note; 


on  transition  to  the  We,  225  ff . ; 
on  individual  difference,  225  note ; 
his  Attempt  at  New  Exposition 
cited,  227 ;  diagram  of  self-con- 
sciousness, 231 ;  his  Ichhelt,  232  ff. ; 
on  das  Ich^  232  note;  relation  to 
Aristotle,  233 ;  on  Jchheif,  234 
note ;  on  self-activity,  235  note,  ff . ; 
on  1  and  Not-1,  237  note ;  on  JJiiu/ 
an  sich,  237  note  2  ;  theory  of  the 
individual,  238  ff. ;  Reines  Ich,  240 ; 
theory  of  divisibility,  241 ;  failure, 
242  ;  on  personality,  243 ;  theory 
of  transference,  244  note;  meaning 
of  criticisms  on,  247  ;  his  reply 
summarized,  248 ;  cited  in  reply, 
249 ;  his  Pure  I  and  Real  1,  250 ; 
das  Ich  reduced  to  das  Pis,  251  ; 
the  result,  252  ;  origin  of  the  I  a 
miracle,  254  ;  omits  heredity,  and 
severs  the  I  from  the  We,  255 ; 
attempted  transition,  256  ;  central 
formula,  257 ;  cited  on  immediate 
object,  257  note,  259  note ;  his 
Marionette  Thou,  258;  solipsism, 
258 ;  compared  with  Hegel,  270, 
271,  276-288;  cannot  think  the  1 
as  person,  II,  1;  method,  177; 
adopts  Kant's  "  intellectual  intui- 
tion," 205 ;  absolutes  Sdhslerztuyen 
a  us  Nirhts,  214. 

Filii)inos,  II,  272  note. 

Finality,see  Causality  andTeleology. 

Finite  and  infinite,  II,  68,  70,  94, 
118-123,  166,  280;  relation  to 
evil,  284. 

First  cause,  ground  and  reason,  I, 
51-54. 

Fischer, Kuno,  on  Hume's  scepticism, 
I,  23  note  ;  on  the  critical  philosin 
phy,  27  note ;  on  intuition  and 
concept,  86  note;  on  truth,  87 
note ;  on  Montaigne,  88  note ;  on 
the  rational  ego  of  Kant,  102 
note;  on  the  productive  imagina- 
tion, 104  note;  on  the  epistemology, 
205  note ;  on  the  Prolerfomrna,  220 
note;  on  Hegel's  Proinidentik,  265 
note;  on  his  theory  of  self-con- 
sciousness,  286  note ;  on  his  psy- 
chology, II,  108  note ;  on  Kant's 
Critique,  139 ;  on  Hegel's  logic, 
225  note,  231  note. 

Force,  in  evolution,  II,  64  ff. ;  Spen- 
cer's theory,  71  ;  criticism,  7.*i- 
91;   Spinoza's,   98-100;  scientific 


Ktl 


Ik 


356 


INDEX 


theories,  116  ff . ;  equivalence  of 
forces,  118  ff. ;  all  natural  forces 
one,  120;  external,  127. 

Form,  and  color,  1,  29 ;  II,  94 ;  and 
matter,  I,  64 ;  Aristotelian  theory 
of  matter  and,  145,  150-153,  158- 
163,  169,  261-263,  266;  the  in- 
dividual, 187;  in  the  syllogism, 
II,  36,  40;  evolution  of,  64  ff.,  74, 
132,  156;  relation  to  substance, 
114;  ultimate,  123 ;  ideal  and  real, 
132 ;  Aristotelian  and  Kantian 
theories  of  matter  and,  133-143 ; 
table,  144 ;  Kant  criticised,  144 
ff. ;  specific,  239  ;  ground  of,  242 ; 
metamorphosis,  244 ;  and  content 
in  perce])tion,  251. 

Fornial  logic,  II,  36,  37  note,  238. 

Freedom,  II,  27,  158,  227;  and 
thought,  99  ;  moral,  163-174  ;  and 
the  ought,  192;  sphere  of,  241; 
relation  to  autonomy,  261 ;  of  the 
will,  262  ff. ;  law  of  moral,  271  ; 
transmission,  290. 

Future  life,  the,  II,  119,  276-282. 

Generalization,  II,  257. 

Generic  essence,  I,  187,  194-196, 
200-202,  206-210,  267  ;  in  the  syl- 
logism, 11,30,37, 239;  of  the  1,289. 

Generic  unity,  see  Apperception. 

Genesis,  see  Evolution. 

Geulinex,  II,  96. 

Genus,  existence  as  summumy  1, 129; 
Aristotle's  theory,  151,  157;  rela- 
tion to  units,  178, 182  ff. ;  relation 
to  essence,  187;  universal,  268; 
evolution  of,  II,  3,  123-131;  in 
the  syllogism,  28-36,  54-60,  153 
ff.,  129-131 ;  Being  as  summum, 
173,  240,  289  ;  objective  reality  of, 
237  ff. ;  genera  evolve  and  involve 
species  and  specimens,  238,  239  ; 
and  idea,  246;  ontological  rela- 
tions, 285 ;  in  absolute  syllogism, 
293—29.5. 

Given,  the,  I,  9,  38,  41-44,  67,  116. 
See  A  priori,  also  Fact. 

God,  us  nitio  sui,  I,  59,  62  ;  Cartesian 
theory,  65;  II,  96;  as  ultimate 
condition  of  knowledge,  I,  65,  127 
note ;  as  self-knowing  universal, 
77;  Aristotelian  view,  153,  156; 
Hegel's,  312,  315;  as  Nature  and 
Spirit,  II,  68 ;  as  Person,  69,  see 
also  All-Person ;  Spencer's  theory 


criticised,  83-89 ;  summary,  91 ; 
as  organism,  94 ;  as  substance, 
96;  Spinoza's  theory,  97-100;  as 
monad,  100;  relation  to  energy, 
118;  ethical  ideal  of,  119,  166; 
as  acting,  121  ;  as  infinite  reason, 
123;  demonstration  of,  173,  244; 
the  only  perfect  gentleman,  282; 
Absolute  unit-universal,  288,  see 
al.so  Absolute  I ;  needs  us,  289. 

God-consciousness,  I,  67,  127  note ; 
II,  290. 

Good,  the,  Hegel  on,  I,  295-3a3, 
314-316;  as  aim  of  cosmos,  II, 
70,  239;  relation  to  personality, 
87  ;  Apriori  of,  160-174,  201  ;  and 
the  True,  192;  as  end,  239,  261  ; 
absolute  relation  to  necessity  and 
the  bad,  261 ;  standards  of,  265  ff. ; 
relation  to  purposes,  270-278; 
perpetuity  of,  274-282;  relation 
to  happiness  and  love,  278,  283 ; 
relation  to  evil,  282-285 ;  as  truth, 
290;  synopsis,  304-307. 

Gorgias,  I,  164. 

Ground,  tlie  ultimate,  I,  3,  7,  54  ;  as 
basis  of  judgment,  4,  13  ;  relation 
to  priority,  5,  18;  identical  with 
content,  6,  7,  9,  11,  14,  19  ff. ;  as 
basis  of  phiIo.«JOphy,  8 ;  in  first 
affirmation,  9,  16,  45;  individual, 
11  ;  relation  to  denial  and  doubt, 
18-21  ;  relation  to  regress,  25,31  ; 
relation  to  identity,  30  ;  diagram 
of  content  and,  31  ;  relation  to 
cause,  32,  45,  51,  56  ;  as  reas(m  of 
knowing,  32  ;  regress  of  rational, 
33,  44,  55,  60,  74 ;  relation  to  ne- 
cessity, 37 ;  man  as  cause-ground, 
46  n.,  56;  absolute  in  causal 
scries,  52  ;  immanent,  54  ;  rela- 
tion to  judgment,  55 ;  comple- 
tion of  regress,  59 ;  summary,  61 ; 
relation  to  axiom,  76  ;  in  the  syllo- 
gism, II,  8,  14,  15,  53-60  ;  ground- 
form  of  thought,  14  ;  and  relations, 
40,  59  ;  absolute  necessity  as,  45, 
60;  absolute,  of  reality,  159  ;  ethi- 
cally regarded,  161-174;  of  the 
syllogism.  234;  of  form,  242;  of 
conduct,  266. 

Haeckel,  II,  62  note,  116  note,  126, 

274. 
Hamilton,  Sir  Wm.,  I,  134  note ; 

on  the  syllogism,  II,  6,  36  note; 


INDEX 


357 


and  agnosticism,  78;  theory  of 
sensation,  249. 

Happiness,  II,  265-267 ;  not  an 
ethical  good,  278 ;  depends  on  jus- 
tice, 283. 

Hate,  II,  283. 

Heaven,  II,  290. 

Hedonism,  II,  265-267. 

Hegel,  his  Betjrijf^  as  ideal,  1, 3  ;  his 
|)anlogism,  36,  40,  69  ;  Paulsen  on, 
42 ;  on  truth,  87  note ;  on  Cogito^ 
eiyo  sum,  89  note  ;  on  philosophy, 
114  note  ;  theory  of  the  1, 1 14  note  ; 
Konkretcr  Beffrijf,  120  note  ;  rela- 
tion to  author  of  this  work,  Royce's 
criticism,  120  note  (cf.  II,  110 
note) ;  theory  of  negation,  130 
note;  dialectic,  130  note,  193; 
source  of  failure,  159 ;  as  Aris- 
totelian, 170,  174,  192  (cf.  II, 
114);  on  the  Begriff,  198  note; 
on  the  object  of  consciousness, 
259  note;  theory  of  the  I  ex- 
amined, 261  ff. ;  his  formula,  261 ; 
relation  to  Aristotelian  Paradox, 
261-266  ;  Hegelian  Paradox,  262 ; 
al»solute  idealism,  264 ;  cited  on 
universals,  265  ;  Fischer,  Ilosen- 
kraux  and  Wallace  on  his  Pro- 
inidfutlk,  265  note;  theory  of 
inherence  and  subsuniption,  266; 
on  magnitude,  267  note;  his  "/w- 
diviciuallluf, "  numerical,  270 ;  his 
Beqriff'  same  as  Fichte's  reines 
Icli,  271  ;  on  universality,  272;  no 
jidvance  upon  Aristotle,  272;  on 
the  One  and  the  Many,  273  note ; 
the  BegriJ)'  falsified,  274 ;  on  self- 
consciousness,  276  ff. ;  Fichte  cited 
in  comparison,  276  note ;  com- 
pared with  Fichte,  278 ;  cited  on 
*•  transference,"  280  note ;  real 
plurality  excluded,  281  ;  cited  on 
self-con.sciousness,  283  ;  criticism, 

284  ff. ;  significance  of  negation, 

285  note ;   Fischer's  restatement, 

286  note ;  ends  with  Fichte,  287  ; 
process  of  "  pure  thought,"  287  ff . ; 
l)egs  the  question,  289 ;  his  para- 
do.\    the   fruition   of  Aristotle's, 

290  ff. ;  on  object  and  specimens, 

291  note;  on  the  Idi,  292  note; 
compared  with  Darwin,  293  ;  tau- 
tology of  self-consciousness,  294  ; 
on  Absolute  Spirit,  Good  and 
Evil,    295;    criticism,    296;    at- 


tempted escape  from  absolute 
zero,  297  ;  the  I  is  the  TOot  of 
evil,  298  note ;  reconciling  "  yes  " 
and  numerical  result,  299 ;  three 
"  moments,"  299 ;  cited  on  FAn- 
zehiheit,  301  note ;  as  Pythagoras 
redivivus,  301  ;  his  error  self- 
refuted,  302 ;  paradox  equated, 
303 ;  the  "  yes  "  fails,  304  ;  con- 
tinued equation  of  the  paradox, 
305 ;  is  the  philosopher  of  the 
llestoration,  306;  theory  of  per- 
sonality, 306  ;  citation,  307  ;  on 
language,  308;  the  1  as  mere 
universal,  309-312 ;  theory  of 
personality  restated,  312;  his  dif- 
ficulty, 313  ;  no  escape  from  self- 
contradiction,  314;  ethical  dualism, 
315;  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  315 
note;  "pure  personality"  is  im- 
personality, 315;  total  defeat  of 
reines  Denkev,  316  ;  his  philoso])hy 
one-sided,  II,  1  ;  his  panlogisni 
and  Kant,  28;  his  Z>VY//7//'presup 
poses  relations,  60 ;  his  "  phaenom- 
enon  in  itself,"  92,  107  note,  245  ; 
attempted  abstraction,  94 ;  root 
of  failure,  106;  on  idealism,  107; 
on  thought,  108;  Fischer  on  his 
theory  of  will,  his  psychology  dis- 
proves his  metaphysics,  108  note  4  ; 
on  the  syllogism,  109 ;  no  place 
for  energy,  110  note;  theory  of 
substance,  110-114;  relaticm  to 
his  antecedents,  111-113;  mon- 
ism, 112;  theory  of  form  and 
matter,  1 14 ;  incurable  fault, 
115;  relation  to  energism,  115- 
118;  apotheosized  relation,  123; 
method  contrasted  with  scientific, 
129;  dialectic  analyzed,  177  ff . ; 
on  "cither— or,"  178  note,  195 
note,  209;  on  dialectic,  179  note; 
theory  of  logic,  180;  on  truth, 
180  note;  on  the  Idea,  181;  on 
Being,  183;  theory  of  Becoming, 
183-204,  226;  .secret  of  dialectic, 
189;  on  dogmatism,  190;  on  em- 
piricism, 1 92 ;  ')n  the  logical 
attitude,  193-197;  dialectic  vs. 
syllogistic,  198;  failure  of  dialec- 
tic, 199;  Trendelenburg  on,  200; 
discredits  understanding,  201  ;  dis- 
cards syllogistic,  202  ;  on  experi- 
ence, 203  note;  cuts  Gordiau 
knot,  205;  speculative  "insight," 


^ 


ii' 


li 


ft  fl^: 


i 


1 

in 
I  I 


C58 


INDEX 


205-212;  invalidates  excluded 
middle,  209 ;  Prantl  on  his  "  jug- 
glery,'* 210;  on  finite  and  infinite 
Spirit,  210  note ;  dialectic  does 
not  include  syllogistic,  210-212; 
result  of  criticism  :  four,  not  three, 
*' moments,'*  212-215;  his  equa- 
tion disproved,  215  note ;  elements 
of  his  idealism,  215  ff. ;  on  dialec- 
tic of  the  Bcf/riff,  216 ;  no  real 
movement  in  the  dialectic,  217; 
on  Aufhehen,  21S  note;  fallacy  of 
the  triiid,  218-221  ;  syllogistic 
solves  his  difficulties,  222;  on 
the  concrete,  225 ;  "  Spirit "  su- 
perior to  law  of  contradiction, 
227 ;  essence  of  dialectic,  and 
pure  sophism,  230;  Fischer  on 
the  dialectic,  231  note;  theory  of 
Being,  235 ;  his  panlogism  im- 
possible, 253  ;  ethical  theories  of, 
267 ;  Abstdute  Uealitv  in  place 
of  his  "  Absolute  Idea,'"  288. 

Helmholtz,  II,  120. 

Jlerakleitos,  I,  164. 

Heredity,  I,  112,  117,  126,  255;  of 
race-consciousness,  135 ;  univer- 
sality tlirough,  207  ;  of  ideas,  II, 
64;  syllogism  of,  124-131;  evo- 
lution in,  239 ;  in  evolution  of 
knowledge,  251 ;  in  transmission 
of  freeilom,  290. 

Ilertling,  I,  153  note. 

Heterogeneity,  II,  3,  75. 

Higher  and  lower,  II,  85. 

History  and  evolution,  II,  2-4. 

History  of  Philosophy,  I,  1-3,  15, 
201  ;  Windelband  on,  69-73. 

Iirdder,  II,  135  note,  UOuoto. 

Home,  II,  290. 

Homogeneity,  II,  75. 

Honor,  II,  266,  277,  279-282. 

Humanitv,  identitv  with  existence 
and  knowledge,  I,  47. 

Hume,  his  scepticism,  I,  23,  note ; 
on  origin  of  knowledge,  65 ;  on  the 
self,  93 ;  compared  with  Kant, 
100,  113;  II,  44,  48;  one-sided,  1  ; 
theory  of  association,  9 ;  self-<'on- 
tratlictions,  10;  on  necessity,  44; 
on  necessary  connection,  48  note, 
73 ;  aposteriorism,  94 ;  Paulsen 
on,  169  note. 

Huxlev,  I,  189  note  ;  II,  62  note,  70 
note',  78,  116  note,  126,  133. 

Hypothesis,  II,  36,  59,  254. 


I,  THE,  in  the  initial  afiirmation,  I, 
15  ;  Descartes  on,  90-92  ;  in  mcMi- 
ern  thought,  92 ;  threefold  nr^an- 
ing,  92 ;  empiricilly  regarded,  93- 
96,  116;  Hume's  view,  93;  criti- 
cism, 94-96;  rational  theory,  96- 
106;  equational  diagram,  UX);  is 
a  real  substance,  100  note  ;  result, 
106  ;  concrete  or  real,  106;  double 
function,  107;  identity  of  subject 
and  object,  108,  111  ;  as  activity, 
109;  as  one  of  the  We,  unity  of, 
110  ;  relation  to  race-consciousness, 
110,  112,  118;  tabular  summary, 
113  ;  Kant's  and  Hegel's  doctrines 
vanish  in  "  x,"  114  note;  origin 
a.s  real  unit,  115  ff. ;  origin  in  the 
We,  116,  125,  136  ff.  ;  Kantian 
theory,  116,  141  ;  as  whole,  117, 
119;  common  element  in,  118; 
concept  of,  121-125;  summary, 
126;  the  absolute,  127,  see  also 
Absolute  I;  destiny,  127  note; 
origin  as  ego  and  non-ego,  128 
ff. ;  relation  to  logical  op|M>sition, 
133;  antithesis  with  Not-I,  133, 
139;  in  soi-ial  relationships,  137, 
"pure,"  141;  table,  142;  conclu- 
sions, 144;  relation  to  external 
world,  146-148;  historical  root  of 
antithesis,  150  ff . ;  Ari.stotlo's  the- 
ory, 154;  in  the  We  jis  univt>r.sal, 
186;  real,  its  man,  203;  absointc, 
209;  active  and  knowing,  210; 
transition  to  the  We,  213  ;  Kant- 
ian theorvof  transition  examiniMl, 
215  ff.  ;Fichte's  view,  22.5-260; 
diagram,  231  ;  relation  to  individ- 
uality, 238  ff . ;  to  personality,  243  ; 
results,  251  ff.  ;  truth  in  Kichte's 
theory,  254 ;  his  failure,  255  ;  re- 
sult, 258  ;  Hegel's  theory,  261  ff. ; 
harm<mious  concept  of  real,  274 ; 
Virchow  on  das  Jch,  274  note; 
Hegel's  statement,  276  ;  his  view 
identical  with  Kichte's,  278,  sec 
also  Hegel;  unsuccessful  theories 
summarized,  II,  1  ;  ground  of  the 
knowing,  8.  14,  24  ;  in  the  syllo- 
gism, 14,  57,  60 ;  and  the  We  in 
the  Abscdute,  91  ;  Spinoza's  the- 
ory, 97-100;  real  vs.  unreal,  106; 
Pure  I  =  the  It,  115;  relation  to 
energy,  117-120;  Aristotelian  and 
Kanti.an  views  compared,  134 ; 
originated  and  uuorigiuated,  170; 


INDEX 


359 


free,  172;  relation  to  limits  of 
knowledge,  236  ;  Not-I  and  ( )ther- 

I,  2.50;  as  the  Good,  262-267; 
ethical  theories,  267  ff . ;  ethical 
equation,  268 ;  relation  to  ethical 
ideals,  271-274;  origin  of  ethical, 
274  ff. ;  question  of  survival,  276- 
282  ;  self-sovereignty,  278  ;  envi- 
ronment of  ethical,  280 ;  human 
and  absolute,  281-288  ;  union  of 
finality  and  ethicality  in,  287 ; 
in  absolute  syllogism,  288-290; 
rational  transition  to  the  We,  291- 
296 ;  as  personal  identity,  295. 

Idea,  Absolute,  II,  68,  181,  288;  see 
Me.as. 

Ideal,  etiucal,  II,  1 19  ;  perficient,  239 ; 
realization  of  the,  262  ff. ;  relation 
to  purposes  and  deerls,  270  ff.  ; 
hunnuwlivine,  290. 

Liealisni,  I,  16;  traditional  and  re- 
formed, 36  ;  speculative,  40-44,  63, 
205,  214;  is  sidipsism  when  con- 
sistent, 122,  220  (cf.  II,  142)  ;  of 
Fichte,  177  note;  Kantian  basis 
of,  186  (cf.  II,  42);  assumes  plu- 
rality, 243 ;  realistic  inference  of, 
258-260  ;  of  Plato,  263  ;  of  Hegel, 
264  ;  thesis   of,  296  ;  vs.  realism, 

II,  60,  150;  a.s  reason  without 
energy,  106-115;  absolute,  110; 
refutation  of  Kanti.'in,  138-155; 
Hegel's  exainine«l,  181-221  ;  solu- 
tion of  its  problems,  222-233,  246  ; 
ethical,  266 ;  sec  al.so  Sulijectivisni. 

Ideality  and  actuality,  II,  68;  and 
reality,  159,  170, '23.5,  242-245, 
262,  288;  as  reason,  256;  and 
moral  deed,  262  ff. 

Idealization  of  Keal,  II,  245,  263, 274. 

Ideals,  evolve  and  involve  purposes 
an<l  deeds,  II,  270  ff. ;  as  realities, 
286. 

"  Ideals,"  of  D.  A.  Wasson,  II,  272 
note. 

Ideas,  as  units  of  experience,  I,  38 ; 
in  (ierman  idealism,  40  ;  Hume's 
theory,  65,  94;  Augustine's,  82 
note;  Plato's,  151,  156,  166-170, 
263;  association  of,  II,  9,  158; 
Locke's  view,  54  note;  teleological, 
64  68,  124,  127;  organic,  92 ';  and 
genera,  246;  relation  to  concepts 
and  percepts,  246-256,  286. 

Identity,  of  content  and  ground,  I, 
6,  7,  9,  29,  34 ;  and  difference,  29, 


39,  61  ;  meanings  of,  29  ff. ;  of  ex- 
perience and  reason,  34-40,  45,  55; 
immanent,  38-40 ;  of  exist<Mice 
and  knowledge,  47,  202;  man  as 
ground  of,  49  ;  of  energy  and  rea- 
son, 56;  summaries,  59,  61  ;  llumo 
on  personal,  94  ;  of  the  sul)ject, 
98 ;  of  subject  and  object,  108 ;  per- 
sonal, 111-113;  Hegelian  tlieory, 
120  note;  in  evolution,  207  ;  II, 

67  ;  in  the  syllogism,  4,  36,  57,  60; 
of  Being  and  'riiouglit,  16,  45; 
in  the  universe,  60,  i49;  in  God, 

68  ff. ;  of  Nature  and  Spirit,  91, 
127  ;  analysis  of  i«lentity  in  differ- 
ence, 92  ff. ;  self-identity  of  energy, 
121;  in  dialectic  method,  185;  in 
the  Absolute,  274;  in  Being,  279; 
in  moral  relations,  281  ;  in  I'erson- 
ality,  287  ;  of  the  I  and  the  We, 
293  ;  of  worlds,  294. 

Ignorance.  I,  16,  187  ;  II,  14,  18,  27, 
43  ;  condition  of,  270. 

"T  know,"  as  a  judgment,  T,  11-15, 
86,  88  ;  see  also  Cthjltn. 

Illusion,  I,  122  ;  necessity  as,  II,  11, 
.32.  41.44,  4.5,  79,  148,  24.5. 

Image,  II,  252. 

Imagination,  relation  to  philosoph}', 
1,3;  productive,  102  note;  II,  1.50; 
free,  245. 

Immanence,  of  reason,  I,  50-54,  58, 
74  ;  in  the  self,  109  ;  in  knowledge, 
124;  in  univcrsals,  189;  in  the 
syllogism,  II,  8,  27  ;  in  B«'ing,  45  ; 
in  dialectic,  194;  see  also  Rela- 
tional constitution. 

Immediacy,  I,  17,  41,  63  ;  Fichte  on, 
228  ff.  ;  of  ex]»erieiice,  II,  129, 
248-260 ;  "  pure,"  230 ;  nature  of, 
248 ;  see  also  the  Given. 

Immortality,  II,  276-282,  305. 

Impersonality,  II,  1,83-91,98,118. 

IinjKJssibility,  II,  10. 

Independent  Being.  11,96-105. 

Indeterminism,  II,  165,  262. 

Indifference,  of  affirmation,  I,  7  ;  re- 
lation to  identity,  29. 

Individual,  the  self-knowing,  1,  77 ; 
originates  in  the  universal,  115; 
Aristotle's  numerical  theory,  1.59; 
conception  and  definilioii,  199  ;  as 
real  person,  200  ;  in  Kichte's  sys- 
tem, 238  ff.  ;  universal,  ol  Hegel, 
II,  267.  See  also  the  I,  and 
l*erson. 


i  I 


360 


INDEX 


to 


Individaal    difference    essential 
whole  individual,  I,  175. 

Individualism,  I,  15, 16,  167;  ethical, 
II,  267. 

Individuality,  in  initial  judgment,  I, 
15 ;  real,  135-137  ;  marriage  as 
condition  of,  137 ;  Aristotelian 
theory,  155,  163;  evolutionary  ori- 
gin, 207  ;  Fichte's  theory,  238  £f ., 
256  ;  Hegel's,  265  ff. ;  numerical, 
270  ff. ;  and  universality,  II,  39 ; 
and  personality,  294,  see  also 
Personality. 

Individualization,  II,  257. 

Individuals  and  particulars,  relation 
to  nniversals,  I,  38,  66,  76,  104 
note,  145, 177,  183  ;  cannot  explain 
the  universal,  54 ;  of  perception, 
94  ff. ;  Aristotle's  theory,  150  ff., 
161-163,  171  ;  how  known,  175; 
unique,  179  ff.;  relation  to  evolu- 
tion, 183;  essence  of,  187;  Dar- 
win's view,  189  ;  Hegel's,  265  ff. ; 
see  also  Inherence. 

Individuation,  I,  153,  163,  188; 
Apriori  of  Being  as  principle  of, 
210;  11,3,  173;  law  of,  240. 

Indubitable,  I,  16. 

Induction,  II,  158,  175,  253. 

Inference,  II,  21-35,  57,  129,  132; 
cosmic  objective,  124,  160;  know- 
ing process  of  subjective,  128 ;  rela- 
tion to  position,  1 57  ;  its  rational 
condition,  259;  in  ethical  syllogi.sra, 
267  ;    subjective-objective,  285. 

Infinite,  of  eternity,  II,  2  ;  and  finite, 
see  Finite ;  regress,  see  Regress. 

Infimum  individuum,  II,  289. 

Inherence,  in  particulars,  I,  66  ;  and 
subsumption,  105,  264  ff. ;  in  in- 
dividuals and  nniversals,  145,  193, 
266-268;  summary,  269;  in  the 
syllogism,  II,  3  ff.,  15,  24,  33-36, 
57,  128. 

Inorganic  and  organic,  II,  243. 

Inseparability,  of  experience  and 
reason,  I,  36,  191 ;  of  units  and 
nniversals,  38. 

Instinct,  I,  127  note. 

Intellect,  and  sense,  I,  36,  39,  64, 
177,  215,  see  also  Understanding  ; 
and  mechanism,  II,  85  ff. ;  apriori, 
240 ;  world-,  279. 

Intellectual  apprehension,  II,  248  ff. 

Intelligence,  its  ground,  II,  8,  39, 
158;  elements,  246,  255. 


Intension,  see  Extension. 

Intention,  II,  264. 

Interaction,  II,  97,  118. 

Interminable,  II,  274-282. 

Intrinsic  truth,  I,  4,  6,  68,  80  note. 

Intuition,  Kantian  theory,  I,  30,  97, 
99,  101  ;  II,  18,  135;  relation  to 
concept  and  truth,  I,  86  note ; 
inner  empirical,  102  note ;  im- 
mediate, II.  129,  130;  Hegel's 
theory,  205  ff. ;  nature  of,  249  ; 
three  kinds,  256 ;  ethical,  261  ;  of 
God,  290. 

Intuitionalism,  II,  266. 

Invariable,  succession,  I,  52 ;  rela- 
tions, II,  155-162. 

Involution  (see  Antecedent,  also 
Evolution),  and  evolution,  If,  2-4, 
59  ff.,  91  ;  in  the  syllogism,  36, 
56,  60,  129-132;  Spencer  on,  61; 
in  organic  process,  63 ;  theologi- 
cal, 65  ff.,  124;  in  cosmic  j)rocos.«», 
70,  123 ;  Spencer  criticised,  72- 
75  ;  in  organization,  92  ff. ;  sum- 
mary, 105,  131  ;  relation  to  ethi- 
cal ideal,  119;  in  absolute  logic, 
234  ff. ;  of  genera,  s|K'rios  and 
specimens,  239  ;  relation  to  poten- 
tiality, 242 ;  of  percepts  and  con- 
cepts, 252  ;  of  dee<ls  and  pnrjjosos, 
271;  energy  and  rea.son  in,  279; 
of  the  spiritual  into  the  natural, 
280  ;  of  the  One,  289 ;  in  the  Ahs<v 
lute  Syllogism,  293  ;  synopsis,  306. 

Irrational,  the,  I,  4 ;  antithesis,  see 
Antithesis. 

Is  vs.  must  be,  II,  5, 15;  vs.  ought, 
274  ff. 

It,  as  thinking  thing,  1,99,  100,  111  ; 
in  Fichte's  theory,  243-247.  2.'>3- 
257;  Hegel's,  279,  305;  imper- 
sonal, II,  1,  292  ;  pure,  155,  or  Not- 
I,  250. 

"  I  think,"  as  a  judgment,  I.  86,  145  ; 
as  regarded  by  Kant,  96  ff.,  116, 
215-233  ;  see  also  Coyito. 

Janet,  I,  1 1 8  note. 

Joule,  II,  120. 

Judgment,  relation  to  truth,  I,  4 ; 
the  rationally  first,  6,  8;  abso- 
lutely unique  as  starting-point,  7, 
13,  50 ;  as  empirical  content,  9, 
55 ;  as  rational  ground,  9  ;  indi- 
vidual and  universal,  12,  55;  em- 
pirical, 13  ;  relation  to  doubt  and 


INDEX 


361 


denial,  17  ff. ;  relation  to  priority, 
18,  59;  the  self-grounded,  30,  80; 
relation  to  causality,  32 ;  implicit, 
48  ;  the  affirmation  of  knowledge 
as,  55  ;  derivative,  88 ;  negative, 
130 ;  Kantian  theory,  220  ff. ; 
Fichte*s,  240;  relation  to  syllo- 
gi.sm,  II,  5  ff.,  20;  a  priori,  12 
note ;  necessary  and  synthetic,  26 
ff. ;  assertory,  31-34  ;  relation  to 
necessity,  41  ff.,  55 ;  defects  of 
Kant's  theory,  46-54 ;  universal 
form,  128;  particular,  129;  rela- 
tion to  inference,  130,  157 ;  to 
genus  and  species,  238  ;  character 
of  true,  247  ;  standards  of  ethical, 
265;  in  syllogism  of  syllogism, 
287  ;  see  also  Affirmation. 

Jurisprudence,  II,  162. 

Justice,  II,  160-174;  supreme  pre- 
cept of,  265 ;  dependent  on  generic 
unity  of  apperception,  268  ;  a  con- 
dition of  civilization,  269;  nature 
and  scope,  278-282 ;  happiness 
and  love  depend  on,  283 ;  the 
Good  as,  290. 

Kant,  on  dogmatism,  I,  21 ;  on  con- 
tent and  form,  30 ;  on  conditions, 
35 ;  "  pure  reason  "  of,  36,  40  note, 
116,  222;  /Jinff  an  sich,  41  note, 
122  note;  antinomies,  52  ;  on  nni- 
versals, 54  note,  105 ;  relation  to 
modern  philosophy,  65 ;  VVindel- 
band  on,  69-73 ;  alleged  demon- 
stration, 71  ;  apriorism,  72,  141  ; 
failure,  72  ;  relation  to  Augustine, 
84  note  (7) ;  on  Cogito,  ergo  sum,  86 
note ;  theory  of  rational  I,  96  ff. ; 
on  ap|)erception,  97-106,  110,  116, 
226  ;  on  combination,  97  note,  105 
note ;  diagrammatically  compared 
with  Hume,  100, 1 13  ;  on  intuition, 
101  ff. ;  "  pure  consciousness,"  102 
note  ;  "  productive  imagination," 
104  note  ;  relation  to  Aristotelian 
Paradox,  105;  disregards  heredity, 
111 ;  on  A  and  Not- A,  128  note; 
theory  of  sensibility  and  under- 
standing, 141,  204-209  ;  "pure I," 
141,  204-209,  225;  Riehl  on,  141 
note;  on  contradiction,  148  note; 
and  the  concept-philosophy,  170; 
theory  of  space  and  time,  1 73  note ; 
*'  Trennung,"  186,  209  (cf.  II, 
143) ;  cited  on  sensibility  and  un- 


derstanding, 205   note,  234   note; 
essence  of  apriorism,  212;  theory 
of     the    I    examined,     215-226; 
"  Krit/Usmus,  "215-224  ;  on  judg- 
ment, 220  ff. ;  his  soli|)sism,  221  ; 
cited   on   judgment,  222  ;  failure, 
224;    Fichte's    criticism,  225   ff., 
288;  diagram.   231;  cited   on  "I 
think,"  233  ;  Fichte  on  his  theory 
of  the  I,  244 ;  fundamental  tenet, 
263  ;  relation   to   Hegel,    279  ff. ; 
cannot  think  the  I  as  person,  11, 
1  ;    on    necessity,    II ;    on    pure 
knowledge  a  priori,  15  note;  de- 
duction of  categories,  16-19  ;  criti- 
cism, 19-25;  on   unity  of  object, 
23 ;  evacuates  syllogistic  must,  24  ; 
theory  of  judgment  criticised,  2()- 
33  ;  Logik  cited,  35  note ;  on  the 
material   of   experience,  37  note ; 
con.sequeuces    of    his    theory    of 
necessity,  41  ff. ;  "  faculty  of  judg- 
ment," 43  ;  imitates  Hume's  sub- 
jectivism, 44  ;  episteniology  criti- 
cised, 46-52;  on  spontaneity,    46 
note;  compared  with    Hume  and 
Locke,  48-51  ;  on  perceptive   un- 
derstanding, 50  note  ;  fundamen- 
tal   error,    50    note  ;    thet)ry    of 
nature,    52   ff.  ;    his   **  cannot   be 
otherwise,"   73   note;  relation   to 
agnosticism,  78  ;  mere  "  phaenom- 
enon,"   92 ;  on  reason   as    organ- 
ism, 93;  his  abstraction,  94;  union 
in  experience,  95;  relation  to  sub- 
jectivism,  102-104  ;  root   of   fail- 
ure, 106  ;  relation  to  Berkeley,  107 
note,    148;    subjectivism  summa- 
rized, 111;  relation  to  Hegol,  113; 
to  energism,  115;  compared  with 
Aristotle,   132-138  ;  on  form  and 
matter,  135  ;  Holder  on,  135  note; 
theory  of    the    object,    135-137; 
tabular  summary,  138 ;  Fischer  on 
the  Criti(jue,  139  ;  Copernicus  and, 
139 ;  Ptolemy  and,  139  note  ;  NVin- 
delband  and   Hi»lder  on  his    Ver- 
bindung,  140  note  ;  logical  failure, 
141-149  ;  theory  of  synthesis,  1.50- 
1.53;  theory  of  origin  of  r"latious, 
150-155;  supreme  error,  104;  so- 
lution of  his  problem  of  relations, 
167;    Paulsen    on    his   view,    169 
note;  method,  175;  "  intclloctual 
intuition,"  205  ;  on  the  syllogism, 
234 ;   on  necessity,  240  note ;   his 


«i 


362 


INDEX 


I'nipro  pharnomena"  figments  of 
ignorance,  245  ;  *'  unknown  root," 
24l>;  epistfiniolo<|fv  impossible,  253; 
"ffoo<l  will,"  201,  207;  on  error, 
263  note  ;  proved  necessity  of  l)oth 
generic  and  synthetic  ap[icrcci)- 
tion,  203. 
Kelvin,  II,  120. 

Kinds,  relation  to  particulars,  and 
universals,  I,  38,  94,  107-109;  as 
uiiit-universals,  112;  ha  origin  of 
the  thing,  115;  relation  to  knowl- 
edge, 123;  relation  to  connotation. 
130;  conscious,  138;  I'latonic  the- 
ory, IG6;  relation  to  property.  178; 
to  existence,  193;  in  rational  re- 
gress, II,  3;  in  the  syUogism,  5, 
15  ff. ;  and  thing,  39  it.;  relation- 
ships, 237  ff. ;  see  Genus,  also 
Univcrsjils. 
Knowahle  and  the  unknowahle,  II, 
•  U6-1.55,  235. 

Knower,  the  AKsolnto.  11,36,  159. 
Knowinir,  relation  to  thinking,  I,  86; 
to  Being,  107,  210,  see  also  IJeing; 
nature  of,  II,  28,  173,  247  ff.,  274  ; 
realities  in,  285;  svllogism  of,  287. 
Knowledge,  as  goal  of  philosophv, 
I,  1  ff. ;  as  heginning,  3;  ultimate 
ground,  4,  13;  as  ground  of  af- 
firmation, 5,  19;  its  human  exist- 
ence affirmed  as  basis  and  axi<»m 
of  philosophy,  8  ;  as  content  and 
ground, 9  ff.;  significance  of  propo- 
sition. Human  Knowledge  Exists, 
13  ff.,  44,  55,  63,  66  ff. ;  interpreta- 
tion of  i>roposition,  15  ff. ;  includes 
douht,  16  ;  as  basis  of   Cartesian 
philosophy,    1 7  ;   exchnles   .scepti- 
cism, 18,  20;  includes  denial,  18- 
22;  possibility  of,  23  ff.  ;  relation 
to   Hume's    scepticism,   23   note ; 
endless  regress  of,  25,  31  ;  neces- 
sity, 27  ff. ;  absolute  ejjuation,  31 ; 
relation  to  causality,  32;  to  knower, 

33,  48;  to  experience  and  reason, 

34,  38;  existence  of,  35;  mo<les, 
39;  relation  to  self-consciousness, 
39;  in  modern  philosophy,  40,  64; 
grounded  in  man,  45,  56  ;  act  of, 
46,  75,  107  ;  proof  of,  47  ;  identity 
with  man's  existence,  47  ;  ultimate 
possibility,  52;  jis  a  universal,  55; 
summary  of  meanings,  59-63 ; 
God  as  conditi<m  of,  66,  77  ;  as  the 
one  given   fact,   67 ;    as  organic 


unity,  74 ;  as  axiom,  75  ff. ;  uni- 
tary and  universal.  76 ;  relation  to 
affirmation,  79,  85  ;  to  concept,  86 
note;  is  true  thought,  87;   third 
element,  87  note ;  a  priori,  98,  1 23, 
268;   origin   in   the   I,   107,   117; 
object  of,  107  ff. ;  relation  to  8ul>- 
jcct  and  object,  115,  120-127,  150; 
abstract    and    concrete,    118-127; 
absolute  ideal,  119;  its  object  con- 
crete, 120-127;  origin  iu  the  con- 
cept, 121, 125;  relation  to  scientific 
realism,  122  note;  nece.s.sary  form, 
124;  limits,  124,  197  (cf.  II,  236), 
see    also    Helativity ;    in   logical 
division,     129-149;'     Aristotelian 
theory,    150-164;     Plato's,    106; 
time  as  l)asis,   173;   its   ultimate 
molecule,  175  ;    individual  differ- 
ence essentijil  to,  175  ff.,  193  ;  rela- 
tion to  conception,  177;  rea.son  and 
experience  essential,  178;  validity, 
187,  193  ff. ;  prius,  194  ;  object  de- 
termines concept,  195;  percepti<m 
fundamental  to,  196-203  ;  identity 
with  existence,  202  ;  origins,  2a3; 
Kant's  view,  204 ;  summary,  206 ; 
conditioned     by    evolution,    207 ; 
e(|uational   summary,   208;   alwo- 
Inte,  209,  210;  A  priori  of,  211,  see 
also  A  priori  of  Being;  transition 
from   inner  to  external,  213  ff . ; 
relation   to  theories  of  the  Kgo, 
215  ff.,  see  also  the  I;  based  ou 
ontology,  II,  3  ;  relation  to  syllo- 
gism, 4  ff.,  see  Syllogism  ;  Hume's 
theory  of  association,  9  ;  Spencer's 
theory,  9;  Being  conditions,  13  ff., 
38  ;  necessary  object  of,  39 ;  abso- 
lute  condition,   40 ;    must  ju«lge 
real  object,  43;    spontaneity   of, 
43,  158;  necessity  in,  45;  defects 
of  Kant's  theory,  46  ff. ;  percepti- 
bility of  relations  essential,  50-54  ; 
Ix)cke's  theory,  50  note ;  svllogism 
of,  56,  92  ff. ;  abs«.lute  possibility 
and  genesis,  59,  60 ;  Spencer's  the- 
ory  criticised,   76-91  ;   communi- 
cation of,   between    minds,    118; 
objective   inference  of,    124-128; 
subjective  inference,  128-131 :  and 
cosmic  process,  132;  Aristotelian 
and    Kantian   theories  compared, 
133-143;  view  of  critical  realism 
summarized,   144 ;    possibility   of 
epistemology,  148,  see  also  Episte- 


INDEX 


363 


mology ;  determines  ethics,  150; 
vs.  relation,  154  ;  and  ontological 
relations,  155;  A  priori  and  A  pos- 
teriori of,  157-160,  171;  empirical 
element  chussified,  158;  essence 
summari/cd,  159;  relation  to  Being 
and  Doing,  173,  235;  known  vs. 
unknown,  236,  see  also  Unknow- 
able;  forms  of,  245;  ejtistemo- 
lopical  foundations,  245  ff.  ;  how 
ac(juired,  253  ;  necessarily  imper- 
fect, 257 ;  synopsis,  311. 

Lamar<^kism,  I,  191  ;  II,  125. 

I^anguagc,  1,  14,  46. 

Law,  of  rationality,  I,  32,  51-54  ;  of 
individual  vs.  universal,  57 ;  of 
existence,  194;  ultinuite,  210; 
of  contradiction,  II,  15,  31,  32, 
149;  of  the  syllogism,  21,  38,  54, 
59,  229;  cosmic,  60-70,  132,  see 
also  Kvolution;  identity  with  proc- 
ess of  universe,  149;  moral,  see 
Moral ;  cosmic  and  logical,  235 ; 
ontological,  238 ;  free«hmi  and, 
241  ;  of  reality  and  potentiality, 
242;  eternal,  281. 

Leibnitz,  II,  97,  100,  104;  relation 
to  Hegel,  111,  112;  to  enca-gisni, 
115,  121  ;  Paulsen  on,  109  note. 

T^nkippos,  I,  104. 

Life,  Aristotle's  theory,  1,  154-157; 
relation  to  evolution,  II,  04  ff. ; 
divine,  89-91 ;  relation  to  reason, 
100;  to  energy,  117;  of  tlu^  Ab- 
solute I,  235  ;  mystery  of,  244  ; 
analogous  to  knowledge,  253  ;  con- 
tinuity of,  274-282  ;  as  identity  of 
Being,  Kn»>wing  and  Doing,  288. 

Likeness,  I,  133;  II,  75,270. 

Limit  of  knowledge,  see  Relativity. 

Limitation,  11,  284. 

Locke,  1,  65;  relation  to  Hume,  II, 
48  note;  on  perception,  50  note; 
on  genera  and  sjHJcies,  54  note. 

Lockyer,  II,  122. 

Logic,  foundations,  I,  21 1  ;  II,  3,  45, 
180,  224  note,  232;  two  forms, 
229 ;  see  also  Syllogism. 

Logical  classes,  I,  129  ff. 

Logical  necessity,  II,  39,  45 ;  see 
Syll«)gism. 

Logical  ]>rius,  II,  242. 

I^otze,  I,  42. 

Louis  XIV,  I,  262,  306. 

Love,  I,  137;  infinite,  II,  70;  rela- 


tion to  goodness,  278 ;  depends  on 
justice,  283  ;  perfect,  289. 
Lower  and  higher,  II,  8.5. 

Maciiink,  one  type  of  Being,  I,  307  ; 
II,  102,  117;  see  Mechanism. 

Magnitude.  I,  267-209. 

Man,  individual  and  universal,  1, 39 ; 
as  kn<»werand  real  person,  ground, 
45  ff.,  56 ;  as  society,  4() ;  self- 
demonstration  of,  47  ;  identity  of 
ground  and  cause,  49  ff. ;  how  ex- 
plained, 57-59  ;  logical  relation  to 
(.iod,  77  ;  Augustine's  theory,  82 
note  ;  is  machine,  organism  and 
])erson,  307  ;  ultimate  nature,  II, 
68-70 ;  machine  and  person,  85  ff. ; 
and  the  world,  90,  94 ;  as  matter 
and  mind,  118;  Being  and  Thought 
in,  129;  ethically  regarded,  161  ff., 
262  ff. ;  contingency  in,  241  ;  as 
rational  animal,  263  ;  religious  re- 
lation to  God,  289 ;  see  the  I,  also 
Person. 

Manscl,  II,  78. 

Manv,  see  the  One. 

Marionette  Thou,  of  Fichte,  I,  258. 

Materialism,  1,  44  note,  121;  II, 
106,  119. 

Mathematics,  II,  45. 

Matter,  Aristotle's  theory,  I,  169- 
172;  S])encer's  theory  criticised, 
II,  72  ft'. ;  and  mind,  90  ff, ;  nature 
of,  114  ff.,  131;  Ostwald's  view, 
110;  contempt  for,  223;  of  scien- 
tific knowledge,  25-1 ;  see  also 
Form. 

"May  be  otherwise,"  II,  1.55-170, 
260. 

Mayer,  11,  110,  120. 

Means,  moral,  II,  202  ff. 

Mechanical  philosophy,  I,  57  ;  II,  60, 
70-91,  126;  of  Spinoza,  97. 

Mechanism,  relation  to  organism,  II, 
2,  03  ff.,  74,  77  ;  and  teleology,  Or,, 
120;  and  pers<mality,  74,  85-91, 
100,170;  self-coufcious.of  Spinoza, 
98  ;  and  energy,  1 17-122,  240 ;  the 
world  as,  238. 

Memory,  relation  to  philosopliy,  T,  3. 

Metaphysics,  I,  36,  42;  rests  upon 
nature  of  things,  II,  45. 

Method,  a  posteriori  vs.  a  priori,  I, 
27  ;  scientific,  43  note,  115,  145  ;  of 
Being  and  Thougiil,  II,  2-4,  .59, 
128  ;  of  Hegel,  129  ;  as  syllogism 


< 


r       I 


( 


364 


INDEX 


INDEX 


365 


of  philosophy,  148 ;  deductive  and 
inductive,  175;  beginnings  of  dia- 
lectic, 177  ;  syllogistic  vs.  dialectic, 
179  ff. ;  speculative,  193-197  ;  so- 
phistic, 195  ;  mystical,  197,  201  ; 
speculative  vs.  dialectic,  197-199  ; 
failure  of  dialectic,  199-212;  result 
of  criticism,  212-221  ;  syllogistic 
solves  the  difficulties,  222-233 ; 
metaphysiciil  difference  of  meth- 
ods, 224 ;  summary,  231 ;  absolute 
logical,  234  ff.;  method  of  methods, 
243 ;  ground  of  scientific,  245 ;  in 
the  evolution  and  involution  of 
concepts,  253 ;  growth  and  scope 
of  scientific,  253  ;  scientific  induc- 
tion and  deduction,  254  ;  summary 
of  absolute  syllogistic,  285  ff. 

Methodology,  II,  243. 

Mind  (see  Consciousness),  nature  of, 
I,  211  ;  and  world,  II,  59,  60,  123, 
132  ;  and  matter,  96,  114-119,  126, 
131,  294;  as  energy,  117;  involu- 
tion of,  239 ;  organic  use  of,  253. 

Minot,  C.  S.,  II.  116  note. 

Modalitv,  II,  150. 

Mohr,  II,  120. 

Molecule,  II,  240. 

Monads,  II,  100,  HI,  240. 

Monism,  II,  77,  99-104, 111-113, 126. 

Moral,  obligation,  II,  160-174,  269, 
271,  279  ;  responsibility,  164  ;  law, 
165,  261,  266,  267,  271,  275,  278, 
280;  realization,  262;  equality, 
265;  criterion,  265  ff.;  equilibrium, 
278;  see  Ethics. 

Aforalildty  II,  267. 

Morality,  as  test,  II,  269. 

Motion,  II,  67;  Spencer's  theory 
criticised,  71  ff. ;  and  matter,  114- 
119;  and  rest,  226. 

Motives,  II,  165,264. 

Murder,  II,  281. 

Must,  see  Necessity,  also  Syllogism. 

Multiple  personality,  I,  1 18  note. 

My-consciousuess,  I,  133  ff.,  144,  146. 

Mysticism,  of  Spencer  and  Spinoza. 
11,98.  ^ 

Nageli,  n,  237. 

Nations,  II,  268. 

Natura  naturans,  I,  52;  II,  98. 

Natural   selection,  I,  159,  175,  189 

note;  II,  125. 
Nature,  as  identity  of  energy  and 

reason,   I,  63;  Aristotle's  theory. 


156;  in   Kantian   theory,  II,  19; 
necessity  in,  45 ;  as  system  of  re- 
lations, 46.  52,  93;  in  the  syllo- 
gism, 52-54,  60  ;  teleology  of,  6.5- 
68,    126  ;    identity    with     Spirit, 
68-70,  91,  127,  286,  288,  294 ;  syl- 
logistic relations  in,  156,  173;  con- 
tingency  in,   241;   categories  of, 
278;  as  life  of  All- Person,  293. 
Necessity,  rational,  I,  3,  6,  7,  10-15, 
22,  37,  54,  59,  67  ;  relation  to  pos- 
sibility, 27  ;  of  knowledge,  27  ff. ; 
immanent,  38,  52;  of  affirmation, 
47;    relative    and    absolute,    79; 
grounded  in  Being,  II,  3  ;  in  the 
syllogism,  4  ff. ;  various  theories, 
7-10;  .lud  impossibility,  10;  sub- 
jectivity  of,    10;    Kant's    theory 
analyzed,  11-58;  outological,  15; 
obieciive,  32 ;  in  the  canons  of  the 
syllogism,  34-37 ;  absolute  vs.  ra- 
tioual,  39 ;  unconditional,  40 ;  com- 
parison of  views,  41-58;  basis  of 
real,   45 ;   implied   in   perception, 
50  ;  all  one,  56  ;  summary,  59,  69 ; 
Spencer  on,  61 ;  allied  term.s,  73  ; 
in  the  Absolute,  131 ;  in  objective 
relations,    148,   155  ff. ;  and  con- 
tingency, 156  ff.,  241  ;  in  ethical 
relations,    160  ff. ;    and   freedom, 
168,  241  ;  in  the  syllogism  of  Be- 
ing, 170;  relation  to  demonstra- 
tion, 179  ff.,  259  ;  hi  philosophical 
system,   234  ff.  ;   reason   inmiedi- 
ately    perceives,   259;  a    fact    in 
Being,  260;  perception  of  ethical, 
261  ;  in  moral  action,  270 ;   rela- 
tion to  evil  and  the  finite,  284  ;  of 
the  ()ther-I.  293. 

Negation,  1, 16,  21,  129-149 ;  Hegel's 
theory,  130  note  ;  II,  177  ff. 

Neo-Hegeliaiiism,  II,  115,  209. 

Neo-Platonism,  I,  2G3. 

Neo-Pythagoreanism,  I,  263. 

Noire,  II,  292. 

Nominalism,   I.   82   note,  191,  263; 
II,  48  note,  246. 

North  American  Review,  1, 173  note; 
II,  13  note. 

Not-A,  see  A. 

Not-I,  I,  133,  139-149  ;  II,  2.^,  291- 
293. 

Not-We.  I,  139-144. 

Nothing,  I,    129  ff.;  II,  39,  183  ff., 
217,  226. 

Noumena  (see  Phaenomena),  rela- 


tion to  knowledge,  1, 75 ;  in  Kant- 
ian theory,  99,  219 ;  in  Plato's, 
166 ;  relation  to  phaenomena,  208, 
210 ;  in  Nature,  II,  60 ;  in  evolu- 
tion, 75,  92  if. ;  in  agnosticism, 
77  ff. 

Numerical  individuality,  I,  270  ff., 
300,  309. 

Nunc  stans,  of  eternity,  I,  53. 

Obligation,  moral,  II,  160-174, 
269,  271,  275,  279;  in  the  syllo- 
gism, 261  ;  in  ethical  process,  280. 

Object,  of  perception,  1,  29;  of  ex- 
perience, 38,  41,  86  note,  87;  of 
knowledge,  40,  107-110,  117,  120- 
127 ;  of  thought,  42 ;  relation  to 
concept,  119  ff.,  195;  as  unit-uni- 
versal, 123-126  (cf.  II,  157) ;  Aris- 
totle's theory,  150  ff. ;  as  unity, 
213  ;  is  thing  in  itself,  II,  12  note, 
149,  239,  245 ;  in  Kantian  doctrine, 
12,  17,  23,  43,  135  ff . ;  necessary 
form,  16;  syllogism  as,  33;  deter- 
mines judgment,  43, 115  ff. ;  tabu- 
lar summary,  144 ;  relations  in, 
1 54 ;  determines  subject,  245  ;  de- 
termines immediate  experience, 
248 ;  outer,  in  perception,  251. 

Objective  inference,  II,  124, 243, 285, 
300. 

Objective  knowledge,  possibility  of, 
II,  250. 

Objectivism,  I,  16,  82  note,  214 ;  11, 
102 ;  vs.  subjectivism,  45,  132 ; 
scientific,  291 ;  see  also  Realism. 

Objectivity,  as  a  criterion,  I,  3,  7, 15, 
28;  in  judgment,  13  ff . ;  see  Re- 
lations, also  Validity. 

Objectivity  of  conditions,  II,  242  ff. 

Objectivity  of  relations,  see  Rela- 
tions. 

Objects  determine  knowledge,  1, 38. 

Observation,  II,  37,  59,  158,  254. 

Occasionalism,  II,  96. 

One  and  the  Many,  the,  I,  15,  164- 
168,206,  210;  Darwinian  theory, 
179;  problem  of,  solved,  269;  m 
Being,  II,  2,  28,  36,  40,  70,  104, 
105,  170;  in  organism,  92-96 ;  re- 
lation to  monism,  99  ;  in  absolute 
energy,  121-123 ;  in  the  syllo- 
gism, 159 ;  as  finite  and  infinite, 
284  ;  evolution  and  involution  of, 
289. 

One  of  the  We,  I,  110,113. 


Ontogeny,  I,  175. 

( )utological  relations,  II,  1 55. 

Ontology  (see  Apriori  of  Being,  also 
Being),  1,  206;  11,3-8,  13,  15,  40. 
128,  132,  148,  170;  identity  with 
epistemology,  229;  fundamental 
truth,  237 ;  laws,  238  ff. ;  classi- 
fied, 287  ;  synopsis,  297-303. 

Opposition  of  A  and  Not-A,  I,  128- 
149  ;  of  We  and  Not- We,  139. 

Organic  and  inorganic,  II,  243. 

Organism,  I,  57,  67,  262 ;  one  type 
of  Being,  307  ;  relation  to  mechan- 
ism, II,  2,  63  ff.  ;  74,  77 ;  of  uui- 
verse,  53  ff.,  94;  law  of,  63  ff.; 
and  machine,  85  ff.,  102,  126;  in 
evolution,  92,  93  ;  the  All-organ- 
ism, 94-96 ;  relation  to  energv, 
117,  240;  society  as,  161  ff.,  268 
ff. ;  law  of  world  as,  239 ;  of  know- 
ing, 253. 

Organization,  II,  92  ff. 

Originated  relations,  II,  155-170. 

Origins,  nature  and  explanation  of, 
I,  115,  168,  175;  II,  156;  of 
species,    126. 

Ostwald,  Professor,  II,  115-117,  120. 

Other-I.  II,  250,  268,  291-293. 

Other- We,  II,  268. 

Ought,  the,  II,  160-174,  192;  ra- 
tional perception  of,  261,  271  ;  vs. 
the  IS,  274-279 ;  and  ought  not, 
280. 

Outer  objects,  in  perception,  II,  251. 

Oversoul,  II,  282. 

Pain,  II,  284. 

Panlogism,  see  Hegel. 

Pantheism,  II,  294. 

Paradox,  see  Aristotelian  Paradox, 
also  Hegel. 

Parmenides,  I,  164. 

Parthenon,  II,  31. 

Particle,  of  sub.stance,  II,  117,  240. 

Particularity,  I,  15;  II,  156,  158, 
159,  167. 

Particularization,  II,  69,  121,  191. 

Particular  judgments,  I,  10. 

Particulars  (see  Indiv'iduals),  of  ex- 
perience, I,  38 ;  combination  of, 
102  note. 

Paulsen,  1, 42, 43  note ;  II,  169  note. 

Percept,  relation  to  concept,  I,  HI; 
in  the  syllogism,  II,  30-38,  60;  re- 
lation to  concepts  and  ideas,  240- 
256,  286 ;  to  sensation,  249  ;  evolu 


<i 


366 


INDEX 


tion  of,  251  ff. ;  in  space  and  time, 
251 ;  three  orders  of,  256. 

Percept-ioncept,  I,  106  note,  107  ff., 
120  ff.,  175;  fundamental  to  all 
knowledge,  106  IT. ;  relation  to 
syllogism,  211  ;  11,4  ff.,  U,  3.3,  36, 
38, 39, 54, 60 ;  rrlation  to  necessity, 
16 ;  summary,  144,  159 ;  possibility 
of,  14M;  and  the  object,  157;  in 
scientific  method,  253. 

Perception,  objects  t)f,  I,  29,  38  ff. ; 
Hume  on,  93  ff. ;  succession  of,  94 
ff.,  100,  106  note,  109  ff.,  118  ff. ; 
of  units,  107;  relation  to  concep- 
tion, 107,  177,  196,  206  ;  Sir  Wm. 
Hamilton  on,  134  note ;  Aris- 
totelian theory,  159  ff. ;  Platonic, 
166-170;  Aristotle  criticised,  176; 
is  of  the  unit,  176  ;  fundamental  to 
knowledge,  196  IT.;  Hume's  view 
one-sided,  II,  1  ;  in  the  minor 
premise,  4  ;  Locke  on,  50  note ; 
epistemological  ])lace,  1 58 ;  tri- 
chotomy, 248-250,  255  ;  outer  ob- 
jects in,  251. 

Perceptive  reason  and  understand- 
ing, II,  50,  258. 

Perceptivity,  II,  50-54,  92,  129, 
255-263,  302. 

Perficient  ideal,  II,  239. 

Permanence  of  personality,  II,  119, 
276-282. 

Perpetuation  of  the  Good,  II,  274- 
282. 

Person,  man  as  real,  T.  46,  49,  56 ; 
the  I  as,  1 10,  see  also  the  I ;  the 
individual  as,   200;    machine,   or- 

fanism  and,  307  ;  <m  thinking  the 
a.s,  II,  1  ;  infinite  All-Person,  69; 
the  world  sis,  95,  126,  239;  as 
Form,  114;  as  energy,  117;  the 
real,  in  ethical  syllogistic,  268, 
275 ;  survival  of  real  ethical, 
276-282;  environment  of  ethical, 
280 ;  God  as,  288. 

Personal,  equation,  I,  1,6,  17  ;  unity 
of  apperception,  111  ;  and  imper- 
sonal, II,  1,  83-90,  118;  and  tele- 
ological,  239 ;  ethics,  269. 

Personality,  ground  of,  I,  112,  116, 
306;  multiple,  118  note;  Aris- 
totle's theory,  1 55  ;  Fichte  on,  243  ; 
Hegel's  view,  306,312,315;  rela- 
tion to  ethicality,  307  ;  infinite,  of 
God,  II,  68,  see  also  All-Person  ; 
threefold,  of  man,  68  ;  relation  to 


machine,  74,  85-91,  100,  170;  re- 
lation to  the  good,  87  ;  absolute, 
91 ;  cosmos  as  All-Person,  95,  126 ; 
Spinoza  discards,  97  ;  relation  to 
reason,  106  ;  as  Form  of  forms, 
114;  thought  as,  118;  permanence 
of,  119,  276-282;  worth,  120;  as 
essence  of  energy,  122,  240;  ethi- 
cal, 161-174,  261  ff. ;  union  of 
ethicalitv  and  finalitv  in,  287  ;  al>- 
solute  syllogistic  con.stitutes,  288; 
as  individuality,  294;  is  the  ab- 
s<dnte  category,  294. 

Persius,  II,  234. 

Pctitlo  prinripii,  II,  36,  58,  255. 

Phaenomena,  of  perception,  I,  30; 
relation  t(>  knowledge,  75,  87  ;  in 
Kantian  theory,  99,  219;  H,  103, 
146,  245;  in  Plato's,  I,  156,  166; 
relation  to  noumena,  208,  210; 
Hegel's  theory,  264 ;  rationalistic 
theory,  II,  II  ;  in  Kunti.an  deduc- 
tion, i7 ;  of  evolution,  75  ff. ;  92  IT. ; 
in  agnosticism,  78  ff. ;  ])haenom- 
enon-noumenon,  92,  144;  relation 
to  mind  and  matter,  119;  nature 
of,  124  ;  Kant  on,  135  ;  relation  to 
form  and  matter,  137-148. 

Phaenomenism,  II,  45,  78,  103,  111. 

Philosophy,  as  search  for  knowledge, 
1,1  ;  relation  to  hi.storv  of  thought, 

I,  15,  69  ff.,  75  ;  to  literature,  3,  7, 
14,  28,  74  ;  starting-point,  4  ff.,  4S, 
66,  74,  80  note  ;  initial  afiirmation, 
5, 10;  knowledge  the  first  principle 
and  axiom  of,  8,  48.  63  ;  as  neces- 
sary system,  10,  11,  73;  Coffifo, 
errjo  sum  lis  l)eginning,  11,  65  (cf. 

II,  292) ;  as  al>.solute  universal- 
ity, 12;  individualism  in,  15,  16; 
doubt  as  beginning,  17  ;  .scepticism 
in,  18  ff.  (cf.  II,  195)  ;  dogmatism 
in,  20  ff. ;  relation  to  po.ssibility  of 
knowledge,  23 ;  reformed  modern, 
36,  66 ;  idealistic,  see  Idealism ; 
mechanical,  57,  see  also  Spencer, 
an«l  Spinoza;  undertakings  sum- 
marized, 59;  self-consciousness  as 
starting-|K)int,  62 ;  l>cginning  of 
m«)dern,  64  ff. ;  defined,  67  ;  pres- 
ent state,  68 ;  Windelband  on, 
69-73 ;  as  world-.science,  73 ;  as 
knowledge  of  (iod,  77  ;  universal 
criterion,  80;  self-certain  inward- 
ness as  beginning,  82  note  ;  Ueiff 
on,  89  note;  Hegel  on,  114  note; 


INDEX 


367 


race-consciousness  as  principle  in, 
118;  failure  of  liegriffsithilosophie, 
see  Concept-phih)sophy ;  germinal 
principle  of  modern,  165 ;  failures, 
203;  fate,   213;    Fichte  on,  240; 
success,  275 ;  systems  summarized, 
II,  I  ;  scientific    method   of,   2-4, 
see  also  Method  ;  ground  of  scien- 
tific, 8,   13 ;    relation   to  agnosti- 
cism, 78  ff. ;  difference  the  key  to, 
94-96 ;  monism  and  ]>luralism  in, 
99-111;  syllogism  of,    132,    173; 
science  and,   241  ;  present  need, 
245  ;  gro\vth  of  scientific  method 
in,  253 ;  dependent   on   morality, 
269  ;  its  elements  and  syllogisms, 
287 ;  transition   to  religion,  288 ; 
development  of  the  syllogistic,  291  ; 
.synopsis  of  syllogistic,  297-308. 
Phylogeny,  I,  174. 
Physicism,  II,  246. 
Physics,  necessity  in,  II,  45. 
Plato,  theory  of  causes,  I,  53  note; 
sterile   antithesis  of,  144;  Zeller 
on    his   theory  of  concepts,  151 ; 
theory  of  the  soul,  154 ;  relation 
to  Aristotle,  156;  relation  to  An- 
tisthenes,    165-168;  his   dualism, 
166;  ontology  and  epistemology, 
167,  1 85 ;  Simplicins  on,  168  note ; 
his  "separation,"  167-170, 179  ff.; 
Zeller    cited    on,   167    note;   dis- 
proved, 209  ;  essence  of  his  ideal- 
ism, 263  ;  method  of,  II,  177;  on 
excluded  midtlle,  178  note. 
Pluralism,  II,  99-104,  111. 
l*olarity,  II,  122. 
Politics,  science  of,  II,  269. 
Possibility,  of  valid  affirmation,  I, 
13 ;    relation     to    actuality    and 
knowledge,  22-27,  52,  194  (cf.  II, 
148) ;  relation   to   the   syllogism, 
II,  5,  8  ff.,  32,  34  ;  of  intelligence, 
8;  and  necessity,    10;   of  Being, 
13  ff. ;  and  relations,  20,   155  ff. ; 
of  the  understanding,  27,  28 ;  of 
existence,  40;  of  ethics,  165;  see 
Necessity,  also  Potentiality. 
Postulation,  I,  80  note,  128  ff. ;  II,  4. 
Potentiality,   Aristotle's    theory,   I, 
261   ff . ;  relation  to  actuality,  II, 
156;  law  of,  242;  metamorphosis 
into  reality,  244 ;  C(juatioual  rela- 
tion with  actuality,  261 ;   ethical, 
265. 
Power,  II,  157. 


Prantl,  I,  36,  89  note,  150  note,  17^ 
note;  on  Aristotelian  logic,  II, 
177  note;  on  the  syllogism,  206 
note;  on  Hegel's  logic,  210  note. 

Preini.ses,  II,  4-6,  8,  'l6,  30-38,  53- 
58, 129-132,  155-160  ;  moral,  160- 
166,  170-173,  266. 

Presuppositionless  beginning,  the, 
I,  10,  59,  66,  77,  80,  88,  89  note. 

Princi/Hum  ntfionis  suj/iriciitis,  I,  32. 

Principle  of  philosopllv,  I,  67. 

Priority,  1,  4-12,  18,  25-27,  59,  132  ; 
see  (/  priori,  also  A  priori. 

Process,  knowing,  I,  108,  207;  II, 
60;  evolutional,  I,  207,  255,  see 
also  Evolution ;  cosmical  and  or- 
ganic, II,  63  ff.,  70;  ethical,  68, 
266;  summary,  105;  as  living 
syllogism,  123-131,  235,  244;  of 
evolution  and  involution,  122-131; 
identity  of  cognitive  and  ethical, 
274  ;  self-j)erpetuating,  274-282  ; 
nature  of  universal,  279. 

Procyon,  II,  20,  26,  29,  52,  53. 

Prodi  kos,  I,  164. 

Proof,  II,  34,  58,  124,  254. 

Property,  I,  151,  178. 

Proposition,  see  AfHrination. 

Prosyllogisms,  series  of,  11,  38. 

Protagoras,  1,  164;  11,86. 

Prout,  II,  122. 

Providence,  II,  285. 

Prudence,  11,  267. 

Psychologv,  rational,  I,  99  ;  of  Plato 
and  Aristotle,  154  ff.,  163  ;  11,250; 
of  perception,  50  note;  of  Hegel, 
108  note;  conceptual  place,  246, 
255,  276. 

Psycho-physical  constitution,  I,  46. 

"  Pure,"  I,  40-44. 

Pure  experience,  1, 9, 123 ;  as  founda- 
tion of  pure  reason,  116;  philoso- 
phy of,  II,  1. 

Pure  knowledge  a  priori,  sec  a  priori, 
also  Kant. 

Pure  reason,  see  Keason. 

Pure  thought  {nines  Denken),  I, 
36,  40-44,  62,  68 ;  weaknesses  of, 
130  note,  267  note,  270;  refuted, 
177  note,  200  ;  failure,  242  ;  over- 
throw, 269  ;  cannot  think  the  1  as 
person,  11,  1  ;  attempted  abstrac- 
tion, 94  ;  separates  energy  from 
re:ison,  106-115  ;  Hegelian  theory 
analyzed,  193-230;  unreality  of, 
253  ;  would  bo  no  thought,  257. 


368 


INDEX 


Purpose,  II,  65-70,  99,  111  ;  ethical, 
162-174,  193,  262  £f . ;  involution 
and  evolution  of  ethical,  270  S. ; 
perpetuating  ethical,  274-282 ;  re- 
lation to  freedom,  283 ;  divine, 
285  ;  realization  of,  286 ;  see  also 
Teleology. 

Pythagoras,  I,  301 . 

Pythagoreans,  the,  I,  164. 

QlTALITY,  II,  150. 

(Quantity,   in  the  syllogism,  II,  29, 

30 ;  and  relation,  150 ;  and  Being, 

244. 

Kace-con8ciou8ne88,  genn  of,  I, 
67  ;  function,  110  £f . ;  origin,  117, 
144 ;  definition,  1 18;  condition,  127 
note;  relation  to  instinct,  127 
note  ;  emergence,  133-135  ;  hered- 
itary, 136;  in  the  Absolate,  II, 
290. 

Ratio  cognoscendi,  I,  32-36. 

Ratio  sui,  I,  53,  59-63. 

Rational  apprehension,  II,  248. 

Rational  series,  see  Series. 

Rationalism,  beginning  of,  I,  64  ff. ; 
relation  to  empiricism,  118;  fol- 
lowing Kant,  141 ;  defect,  147, 
204 ;  doctrine  of  necessity,  II,  7, 

10,  13;  is  solipsism,  11  ;  method, 
175  ff. 

Rationality,  condition  of,  I,  3 ;  na- 
ture, 12;  proof,  20;  law,  32,  51 
ff.;  ground,  85  ;  perception  funda- 
mental to,  196 ;  of  the  universe, 

11,  123  ;  see  also  Reason. 
Realism,  I,  16  ;  scientific,  36,  44,  49, 

63,  120  note,  122,  191  ;  Augustin- 
ian,  82  note  (7);  ••critical,"  of 
Riehl,  122  note  ;  foundation  of  in- 
ferential, 256-259;  Greek,  263; 
II,  45  ;  scientific  critical,  II,  13, 
106, 222  ;  formula,  143 ;  table,  144; 
fundamental  principle,  148 ;  sum- 
mary, 246 ;  see  Relations. 
Reality,  in  German  idealism,  I,  40- 
44 ;  of  knowledge,  75  ;  of  object, 
123;  of  external  world,  146;  in 
space  and  time,  173,  176;  of  the 
smgle  thing,  183;  of  genus  and 
species,  187,  268;  of  existence, 
193;  of  knowledge,  194  ff. ;  abso- 
lute, 209  ;  three  spheres,  210;  of 
individual  difference,  267  j  of 
space,  II,  13 ;  of  the  cosmos,  69 ; 


Spencer's  theory  criticised,  72  ff. ; 
in  the  world-proce.'^s,  105;  three 
elements,  113  ;  knowable,  l:i3,  148, 
scientific  theory,  149,  see  also 
Realism;  absolute  ground,  158; 
and  potentiality,  242-245 ;  and 
ideality,  244,  262;  objeclive,  of 
genera,  species  and  specimens,  237 
n. ;  objective  relations,  240 ;  im- 
manent law,  242;  Being  as,  243, 
see  aLso  Being ;  of  perce|)ts,  con- 
cepts and  ideas,  247  ff. ;  summary, 
279 ;  in  Being,  Knowing  and  Do- 
in^,  285  ff. ;  absolute,  288. 

Realization,  moral,  II,  262  ff.,  286. 

Reason,  ideal  of,  I,  1 ;  relation  to 
affirmation,  3  ;  to  ground,  9  ;  nec- 
essary system  of,  10, 1 1  ;  nature  of, 
13-15,  38,  74;  method  of  investi- 
gating, 27;  of  becoming  and 
knowing,  32 ;  identical  with  ex- 
perience, 34  ff.,  45,  114;  specula- 
tively sundered  from  experience 
as  •'  pure,"  36,  40-44,  64  f!.,  71-73, 
99,  102,  116,  123,  192;  as  imma- 
nent process,  50,  53  note ;  its  own 
ground,  53  ;  relation  to  cause,  54  ; 
Kantian  self-criticism  of,  71-73; 
"  light "  of,  82  note  (3)  ff . ;  as  im- 
plied  in  act  of  knowledge,  107  ; 
scope,  178;  inseparable  from  ex- 
perience, 191  ;  relation  to  involu- 
tion and  regress,  II,  2-4,  see 
Regress;  to  the  syllogism,  4  ff., 
see  Syllogism  ;  to  necessity,  7  ff., 
see  Necessity ;  immanent  reason 
of,  8 ;  Kant  on,  1 1  ;  spontaneity 
of,  16  ;  crucial  question  of  "  pure, 
41 ;  summary,  59  ;  teleological,  68, 
126,  127;  in  AU-Person,  70;  in 
world-process,  105  ;  in  action,  106 ; 
relation  to  energy,  106,  122-132, 
see  Reason-Energy  ;  infinite,  123; 
in  the  objective  inference,  124- 
131  ;  thinks  the  ideal  form,  132 ; 
summary  of  relationships,  149; 
reasoning  and  relationing,  156 ; 
elements,  157-160;  pure,  and  cau- 
sality, 169;  ethical  relations,  160- 
1 74  ;  law  of  essence  as,  239  ;  suffi- 
cient, 239  ;  in  energy  as  right,  239; 
form-giving,  241  ;  equality  with 
energy,  245  ;  unreality  of  '*  pure," 
253  ;  as  a  function  of  intelligence, 
255 ;  as  perceptive,  logical  and 
ethical  comprehension,  256;   last 


INDEX 


369 


appeal  of,  256 ;  directly  perceives 
syllogistic  necessity,  259  ;  ethical, 
teleologic^il  functions,  261-274; 
birth,  275  ;  in  energy  as  evolution, 
279  ;  absolute,  289  ;  synopsis,  302. 

Reason-Energy,  I,  62,  74,  77;  II, 
91,  1.56-1  GO,  235. 

Receptivity,  of  the  understanding, 
II,  130. 

Reciprocity, ethical,  II,  160  ff.;  logi- 
cal, 228. 

Redact io  ad  absurd um,  of  pure 
thought,  II,  214  ;  ethical,  264. 

Regress,  endless,  I,  10,  25 ;  of  con- 
tent and  ground,  31,  44  ff.,  54  ff. ; 
rational,  33  ;  causal,  52-54  ;  mean- 
ing of  rational,  .54 ;  double  aspect, 
56 ;  completion,  59 ;  summary, 
60-63 ;  immanent,  67,  74 ;  rela- 
tion to  axiom,  76  ;  to  conditions, 
II,  2  ;  in  the  syllogism,  3  ff.,  38. 

Reiff,  J.  F.,  I,  41  note,  89  note. 

Reific  difference,  I,  175. 

Reitic  essence,  1,  187,  194,  196,  200- 
202,  206-210,  267  ;  in  the  syllo- 
gism, II,  30,  239 ;  of  the  finite  I, 
289. 

Reines  DenkcUy  see  Pure  thought. 

Reinhold,  I,  245. 

Relating  (relationing),  II,  18,  19, 
156. 

Relational  constitution,  I,  108,  118, 
187  ff.,  196,  202.  209  ;  in  the  syllo- 
gism, II,  16,  27,  30,40;  relation 
to  organism,  92  ;  of  the  universe, 
104  ;  form  jis,  114;  of  knowledge, 
148 ;  of  existence,  149  ;  in  percep- 
tion, 251  ;  as  free  determination, 
279. 

Relations,  nature  of,  I,  38;  in  Ger- 
man idealism,  40  ff. ;  subjectivity 
of,  97  note ;  ultimate  in  Being, 
177  ;  ontological,  II,  13-17  ;  ob- 
jectivity vs.  subjectivity  of,  17-33, 
46,  106 ;  immanent  in  the  syllo- 
gism, 21,  22,  53  ff.,  129;  absolute 
objective,  28 ;  constitutive,  onto- 
logical, 40 ;  perception  of,  50-52, 
129;  cosmical,  organic,  .53  ff . ;  ab- 
solute, prior,  59  ;  in  organism,  93  ; 
tabular  summary,  144  ;  objective, 
real,  knowable,  148  ;  scope,  149  ; 
modality,  quality,  quantity  and, 
150;  Kantian  theory  of  origin, 
150-155,  166;  ontological,  classi- 
fied,  155-157;    syllogistic,     156; 

VOL.  II.  —  24 


epistemological,  157;  twofold  ori- 
gin, 159,  166;  ethical,  160-168; 
choice  originate.s,  164;  four  theo- 
ries of  contingent,  168  ;  classifi- 
cation, 170-174;  in  trichotomy  of 
Being,  237-250;  their  objectivity 
demonstrated,  240  ;  equation,  243 ; 
things  in  themselves,  245 ;  imma- 
nent in  cognition,  247 ;  necessary 
factors  in  knowledge,  255 ;  intel- 
lectiim  of,  256  ;  equation  of  ethi- 
cal, 262  ;  in  the  environment,  263  ; 
social,  268;  fun«laineiital  moral, 
281  ft". ;   synopsis,  300-304. 

Relativitv  of  knowledge,  1,  74,  188; 
II,  78-91,  103,  111  ;  absolute,  176, 
181  ;  and  the  limits  of  knowledge, 
236. 

Religion,  II,  70, 150,  166, 172  ;  syllo- 
gistic i)lace,  288  ;  human  and 
divine,  289  ;  in  absolute  syllogism, 
299,  308. 

Representation,  I,  96,  226,  233  ;  II, 
18. 

Resistance,  II,  122. 

Responsibility,  II,  165;  see  Obliga- 
tion, also  Ought. 

Riehl,  Professor,  I,  122  note,  141 
note. 

Right,  the,  II,  160-174,  239;  and 
wrong  action,  163-166,  261  ff . ; 
Apriori  of,  261,  266-271,  278  ff.; 
and  moral  criteria,  265  ff. ;  as 
justice,  280-282. 

Righteousness,  II,  270,  281. 

Rights,  social,  II,  268. 

Romanes,  I,  189  note. 

Royce,  Professor,  I,  120  note. 

Scepticism,  I,  18-21 ;  II,  194. 

Schelling,  I,  42,  170,  265  note;  II, 
177  ;  his  "  Sprung,"  200;  founda- 
tion of  his  idealism,  205. 

Schleiermacher,  II,  244  note. 

Schopenhauer,  on  truth,  I,  4,  6;  on 
ground  and  causality,  32;  his  alo- 
gism,  II,  28,  262;  and  lie<^el,  108 
note. 

Science  (see  Philosopliy),  as  goal  of 
philosophy,  I,  1,  69,  77  ;  the  possi- 
bility of,  51  ff.  ;  method  of,  145, 
see  Method;  modern,  169;  old 
and  new,  175,  189;  limits,  198; 
true  to  Greek  realism,  II,  45; 
grounded  in  relations,  159,  170; 
and  philosophy,   241 ;    particular 


370 


INDEX 


INDEX 


371 


'li 


,i( 


sciences,  245,  246 ;  as  syllogistic 
equatiou,  254 ;  the  f  uudameutal 
sciences,  287. 

Scientific  method,  see  Method. 

**  Scientific  Theism,"  II,  52  note. 

Scientific  theism,  II,  118,  288,  298. 

Self  (see  the  I),  in  modern  tliought, 

I,  92  ff. ;  Hume  on,  93  ;  subject 
and  object  in,  109 ;  relation  to 
race-consciousness,  112,115  ff . ; 
relation  to  heredity  and  will,  117; 
my-  and  another-,  133  ff . ;  Aris- 
totle's theory,  154  ff. ;  see  also 
the  We. 

Self-activity,  "  pure,"  I,  40,  44  ;  in 
Kantian  theory,  97  note;  essence 
of  thinking  self,  II,  14  ;  of  Ail- 
Person,  68;  teleological,  99,  117; 
view  of  Leibnitz,  100 ;  Hegel's, 
113,225;  of  Being,  127;  intellect- 
ual, 130 ;  of  evolution  and  invulu- 
tion,  236. 

Self-cause,  I,  52 ;  see  also  Causality. 

Self-caused,  I,  31-33. 

Self-certainty,  I,  82  note,  92;  II, 
101. 

Self-condition,  I,  53. 

Self-conscious  mechanism,  of  Spi- 
noza, II,  98. 

Self -consciousness,  I,  16 ;  ground 
and  essence,  39,  47  ;  as  starting- 
point,  62,  64 ;  implied,  in  the 
axiom  of  philosophy,  67  ;  unity  of, 
97,  see  also  Apperception  ;  univer- 
sality, 106  note;  possibility,  108; 
principle,  109 ;  racial,  see  Uace- 
cousciousness ;  scope,  117;  defini- 
tion, 118;  as  Ego  and  Non-Ego, 
127  ff.,  see  the  I ;  Fichte  on,  128 
note,  227  ff. ;  relation  to  postuia- 
tion,  128  ff.;  origin,  133  tf.,  144; 
Kantian  theory,  215  ff. ;  Hegelian, 
276  ff.,  see  also  Hegel ;  ultimate, 

II,  91  ;  as  unit  of  reason-energy, 
159  ;  presupposes  perception,  2.)6 ; 
ethical,  275  ff. ;  in  the  Absolute, 
290. 

Self-contradiction,  II,  15. 
Self-demonstration,  I,  21,  47,  56,  75. 
Self-determination  of  the  self,  11, 14, 

283  ;  of  Being,  280. 
Self-devotion,  II,  70,  166,  278,  289. 
Self-existence,  I,  31-33. 
Self-groundedness,  as  criterion,  I,  7, 

33,  78-80,  84  ff. 
Self-identity,  II,  121. 


Self-knowledge,  I,  39 ;  of  the  Abso- 
lute, II,  16  ;  see  Self-consciousness. 

Self-mediation,  11,  34-37,  57,  70. 

Self-parlicularization,  1,  149,  2.54. 

Self-perpetuating  process,  11,  3,  68, 
274-282. 

Self-preservation,  II,  265,  269,  272 
note  ;  ethical  place  of,  278. 

Self-realization,  II,  286. 

Self-relation,  1,  41. 

Self-relational  constitution,  see  Re- 
lation:i]. 

Self-respect,  II,  278. 

Self-sovereignty  of  the  I  and  the  We, 
II,  278. 

Self- surrender,  II,  166. 

Self-universalization,  11, 149. 

Selfishness,  II,  263,  271,  283. 

Sensation,  in  ex|)erience,  1,  38 ;  in 
modern  philosophy,  64 ;  Kant's 
theory,  II,  135  ff.,  146,  150  ;  classi- 
fied, 249  ff.  ;  visual,  258. 

Sense-perception,  II,  248  ff.,  258; 
see  also  Perception. 

Sensibility,  see  Understanding. 

Sentimentalism,  II,  266. 

Separation,  metaphy.'<ical,  see  Plato ; 
see  also  Experience,  and  Uetisou. 

Sequence,  1,  52. 

Series,  endless,  I,  25 ;  rational  and 
causal,  51-5.5  ;  self-conscious,  101 ; 
indeterminate,  116;  evolutional, 
173,  180,  199  ff. ;  causal  without 
rational,  II,  99. 

Service,  11,  265,  269,  278,  290. 

Simplicius,  I,  168  note. 

Simple  apprehen.siun,  11,248. 

Sin,  is  the  ethical  fallacy,  II,  267. 

SiU/irhleit,  II,  267. 

Social  ethics,  II,  269. 

Social  organism,  II,  161  ff.,  268. 

Social  rights,  II,  268. 

Sokrates,  1,  164,  165,  185;  II,  86, 
103,  177,  178  note. 

Solipsism  (see  Llealism),  I,  97  note, 
122,  147,  216-221,  256  ;  of  Fichte, 
258 ;  only  escape  from,  259 ;  im- 
plied in  rationalism,  11,  11;  in 
idealism,  60,  138,  142. 

Sometliing  vs.  Everything  and  Noth- 
ing, I,  129  ff. 

Sophistic,  see  Method. 

Sophists,  the,  I,  164. 

Soul  (see  the  I),  self-certainty  of,  I, 
82  note;  De.scartes  on,  90;  and 
body,  148 ;  Aristotle's  theory,  154- 


157  ;  dualism  of  body  and,  II,  96, 
294  ;  interaction  of  body  and,  118. 

Sovereignty,  II,  161. 

Space  and  tiim*,  Kantian  theory,  I, 
173;  II,  18,  141;  unit-universal 
in,  1,  193;  the  individual  in,  199- 
201;  evolution  in,  1,  267;  II,  2; 
as  forms,  11,  18,  141  ;  objectively 
real,  13,  28;  Spetaer  on,  71; 
Apriori  of  Being  in,  155;  neces- 
sary relations  of,  166 ;  necessity 
of,  242;  perception  in,  251. 

Species,  relation  to  particulars  and 
uuiversals,  I,  39,  155  ff . ;  to  speci- 
mens, 115;  to  genus,  129,  182, 
268;  Aristotle's  theory,  151,  156 
ff.,  17,  179;  relation  to  accidents, 
173;  to  essence,  174,  187;  whole 
individual  essential  to,  175;  Dar- 
winian theory,  175, 179  ;  Uomaues 
on,  189  note;  Cuvier  on,  191; 
reality  of,  197  ;  derivation,  268  ; 
Hegel's  view,  272  ff. ;  value  of 
Darwin's  di.scovery,  293 ;  in  the 
syllogism,  II,  3,28-36,-53-60,  129; 
evolution  of,  3,  123-131,  238  ff. ; 
H.  S.  Williams  on,  53  note  ;  in 
the  organic  process,  63  ff.,  123- 
131  ;  Conn  cited  on,  125;  as 
kinds  in  themselves,  237  ;  Nageli 
on,  237  ;  objective  rwility,  237  ff. ; 
and  concepts,  246  ;  ontological  re- 
lations, 285  ;  in  the  absolute  syllo- 
gism, 293-295. 

Specimens,  relation  to  universals,  I, 
39,  115,  1,59,  171  ff. ;  relatitm  to 
accidents,  175  ;  in  rational  regress, 
11,  3 ;  species  evolves,  4,  124  ;  in 
the  syllogism,  28-36,  .53-60;  the 
new,  130,  132  ;  in  ontolop;ical  evo- 
lution, 237  ff. ;  as  things  in  them- 
selves, 237, 239  ;  and  percepts,  246 ; 
growth,  253  ;  ontological  relations, 
285  ;  in  absolute  syllogism,  287, 
293-295  ;  see  Species. 

Specimen-group,  II,  124-131. 

Spencer,  his  mechanical  evolution- 
ism, II,  2  ;  on  knowledge,  9 ;  on 
evolution,  60,  70;  theory  of  life, 
64;  criticism  of  his  evolutionism, 
72-91,  126;  relation  to  agnosti- 
cism, 78-91  ;  cited  on  Ultimate 
Cause,  81;  his  Unknowable  criti- 
cised, 82-91,  123;  illustration  of 
the  watch,  88  ;  principle  of  '♦  rela- 
tivity,"   90;    pandynamism,    94; 


compared  with  Spinoza,  98 ;  theory 
of  accumulation  of  experience, 
240  note  ;  his  "  Infinite  and  Eter- 
nal Energy,"  244;  will  soon  be 
outgrown,  274. 

Spinoza,  1,  .52  ;  his  theories  exam- 
ined, 11,  'J7  ff. ;  relation  to  llcgel, 
HI,  112;  his  "attributes,"  1*17; 
Kthica,  135. 

Spirit,  Jt<<  antecedent,  II,  68;  iden- 
tity with  Nature,  68-70,  91,  127; 
Hegel's  view,  108-115,  181,  220 
note,  226  ;  course  of,  239,  243 ; 
method,  286,  288. 

Spiritual,  world-process,  II,  69-91, 
280;  activity,  114;  energy,  119, 
131;  consciousness,  275;  evolu- 
tion of,  280. 

Spontaneity,  Kantian  view,  1,  97, 
106  note;  and  heredity,  112,  126; 
and  uiiiquenes.s,  2.54 ;  Kantian 
tlieorv  examined,  II,  16-35,  38- 
54,  .58  ff.,  129,  143,  151-1.55;  of 
knowledge,  43;  creative,  156; 
moral,  164-167. 

Standard,  moral,  II,  161  ff. ;  see  also 
Criterion. 

Starting-point,  of  philosophy,  I,  3- 
15,  22  note,  30,  48;  of  modern 
philosophy,  I,  64  IF. 

Stoieism,  11,  267. 

Subject,  of  knowledge,  I,  13,  65,  75; 
the  jnd;;ing,  13  ff.,  33,  46  ff.,  99, 
109;  II,  17,  129,  151;  the  relat- 
ing, I,  97  note ;  identity  with  ob- 
jeet  in  the  self,  108  ;  subject-object, 
110,  1 17-126;  II,  240;  and  object 
of  knowledge,  1,  115,  121,  123,  see 
also  ( H)ject ;  knowledge  of  object 
by,  117;  activity  of,  123;  as  ob- 
ject, 137  ;  absolute  subject-object, 
II,  16,  68,  235;  in  Kantian  deduc- 
tion, 1 7  ff . ;  relation  to  syllogism, 
129  ;  relations  in,  154  ;  the  moral, 
164-166;  relation  to  object  and 
other  subjects,  247-250;  self-de- 
termining, 261 ;  determines  the 
object  in  knowing,  263  ff. 

Subjective  inferenc'\  knowing  pro- 
cess of,  II,  128;  subjective-object- 
ive, 285. 

Subjectivism,  beginnings  of,  I,  16, 
64,  82  note,  92  ;  of  Kant,  1 16,  sec 
Kant;  transition  to  objectivism, 
214 ;  when  consistent,  is  solipsism, 
II,  1 1, 101 ;  of  Kaut,  analyzed,  16  ff., 


I 

i 


372 


INDEX 


INDEX 


373 


i)> 


42  ff. ;  epistemology  of,  46-52, 
132  ff.,  236;  of  Hume,  48  note; 
source,  50;  of  Descartes,  101; 
formal  logic  of,  238 ;  failure,  292. 

Subjectivity,  in  judgment,  1,  13  ff. ; 
U,  12  note  ;  of  necessity,  10  ff.,  of 
relations,  see  Relations. 

Substance,  the  I  as  real,  1,  100  note, 
106;  Aristotelian  theory,  150  ff., 
168,  261-266;  of  knowing  self,  II, 
14;  as  cosmic  energy,  69  ff. ; 
Cartesian  theory,  96;  Spinoza's 
theory,  97-101  ;  Leibnita's  theory, 
100;  as  identity  in  difference, 
105 ;  Hegel's  theory,  1 10-114, 215 ; 
real,  113;  relation  to  matter,  114 
ff. ;  to  energy,  115  ff.,  242;  mind 
and  body  as  one,  118;  energy  as 
sole,  120-123;  summary  of  rela- 
tionships, 149,  238  ff. ;  and  world- 
will,  279. 

Subsumption,  inherence  and,  see  In- 
herence ;  in  the  syllogism,  II, 
30-39,  60 ;  in  the  universe,  243  ; 
in  epistemology,  246 ;  ethical,  261, 
274. 

Succession,  see  Ferception,  also 
Time. 

Such,  see  This. 

Suffering,  II,  120,  284. 

Sufficient  reason,  I,  32 ;  II,  239. 

Suminuin  yenus^  II,  3,  129,  173,  240, 
^  288,  289. 

Snmmum  indiuiduum,  II,  240,  288, 
289. 

Sumption,  II,  31-33. 

Superpersonal,  the,  II,  84. 

Syllogism,  the  Aristotelian  immedi- 
ate, I,  63 ;  the  principle  of,  73,  74, 
211;  discovery  of  conditions,  II, 
2-4;  elements,  4;  the  must,  5; 
its  necessity  ontological,  6 ;  Sir 
Wm.  Hamilton  on,  6 ;  theories  of 
necessity  analyzed,  7  ff. ;  object  of 
experience  is  implicit  syllogism, 
12  note  ;  necessity  is  objective,  13; 
Being  conditions  thinking,  14; 
illustration  of,  14;  experience  a 
necessary  factor,  15 ;  eternal  syl- 
logism of  Being,  16;  Kantian 
necessity  criticised,  16-24 ;  his 
"  must '  a  spontaneous  act,  20  ; 
necessary  inference  illustrated  by 
a  syllogism,  20 ;  nature  of  infer- 
ence, 21,  22;  of  agreement,  23; 
Kantian  subjective  necessity  really 


objective,  24 ;  synthesis  and  neces- 
sity of  judgments,  26  ;  ontological 
conditions  determine  truth,  27 ; 
absolute  objectivity  of  relations 
the  norm,  28 ;  extension,  intension, 
quantity,  validity,  29 ;  terms,  30  ; 
premises,  31,  34,  254;  the  must  is 
cosmic,  32;  upodeictic  judgment, 
32;  the  nine  canons,  33  37 ;  va- 
lidity vs.  fallacy,  35  note;  the 
empirical  element,  37;  necessity 
absolute,  39  ff . ;  contrastetl  with 
Kantian  subjectivism,  41-52 ;  an- 
tecedent and  consequent,  52,  56; 
genus,  species  and  specimen,  53 
ff. ;  Apriori  of  Being  the  ground, 
54,  55  ;  relation  of  terms,  56 ;  the 
tliree  syllogisms,  56  ;  the  process, 
57;  proof,  58;  syllogism  of  Be- 
"ig.  59-91  ;  involution  and  evo- 
lution in,  60  ff.;  syllogism  of 
energy,  62  note ;  the  genetic,  67  ; 
three  aspects,  69;  syllogism  of 
knowledge,  92-131 ;  summary,  95; 
Hegel  on,  109 ;  the  living  cosmic, 
123,  245;  objective  inference  in, 
124;  of  heredity,  124  128;  8ul>- 
jective  inference  in,  1 28  ;  of  epis- 
temological  heredity,  128;  sum- 
mary, 132  ;  the  law  of,  149  ; 
nnoriginated  major,  155;  the  one 
lieasou-Euergy  syllogizing,  156; 
ultimate  determination  of,  156; 
epistemological  relations,  157-1 60; 
possibility  of  a  conclusion,  160, 
179  ;  of  duty,  162 ;  moral,  163  ;  of 
religion,  166,  172;  of  philosophy, 
173;  deduction  and  induction  in, 
1 75  ;  Aristotle's  discovery  of,  1 76 ; 
syllogistic  vs.  dialectic,  179-233; 
vs.  sophistic,  195  note;  Trantl  on 
its  foundations,  206  note;  is  the 
only  real  form  of  knowledge,  223  ; 
relation  to  contradiction,  228 ;  as 
law  of  unit-universals,  229  ;  sum- 
mary, 231-233  ;  absolute,  234, 
237  ;  Kant  on  categorical,  234 ; 
relation  to  Absolute  Subject,  235  ; 
ontological  foundations,  237  ff. ; 
concrete,  239,  243  ;  genus,  species 
and  specimen  in  nature's  prem- 
ises, 243 ;  its  essence  is  equation 
of  relations,  243  ;  secret  of,  "  new 
insight"  of,  244  note;  eternal 
equality  of  antecedent  and  conse- 
quent, 245,  epistemological  foun- 


dations, 245  ff. ;  new  conclusion 
in,  251 ;  in  scientific  method  and 
system,  253 ;  inductive,  254 ;  is 
not  a  petitio  princi/n'i,  255  ;  three 
orders  of  percepts  in,  256  ;  pre- 
suppositions of,  259  ;  condition  of 
rational  inference  in,  259 ;  ch.ar- 
acter  of  the  ethical,  262,  266  ;  one 
process  in  Being,  Knowing  and 
Doing,  267  ;  ground  of  ethical  syl- 
logistic, 268  ff. ;  ethical  processes 
in,  274-291 ;  universal  process,  279 
ff .  ;  comprehensive  sunnnary,  285  ; 
absolute  methodology,  287 ;  ab- 
solute syllogism  analyzed,  289 ; 
involves  solution  of  problem  of 
transition  to  the  We,  292 ;  the  syl- 
logism stated  to  include  known 
worlds,  293  ;  synopsis,  297-308. 

Syllogistic,  see  Method. 

Synthesis,  act  of,  II,  16. 

Synthetic  judgment,  II,  26  ff. 

Synthetic  unity,  see  Apperception. 

Tait,  II,  116. 

Teleology,  I,  307 ;  II,  2,  65-70,  84- 
91,  117,  124-127;  ethical,  167,261 
ff. ;  law  of,  239,  243 ;  of  reason, 
261  ;  universal,  279. 

Tension,  II,  122. 

Terminable,  II,  274. 

Terms,  in  causal  series,  I,  51-54 ; 
totality  of,  62  ;  and  relations,  177  ; 
of  the  syllogism,  II,  4,  30,  33-37, 
56 ;  genera,  species  and  specin^ens 
as,  239-247 ;  percepts,  concepts 
and  ideas  as,  247  ;  general,  252 ; 
ultimate,  of  philosophical  syllo- 
gism, 286  ff. 

Thales,  I,  164. 

Thathandlnng,  I,  75,  235. 

Theism,  scientific,  II,  118,  288,  298. 

Theology,  II,  288. 

Theory  of  knowledge,  see  Epistem- 
ology. 

Thing,  the  kind  as  origin  of,  I,  115 ; 
relation  to  logical  division,  129  ff. ; 
conscious  and  unconscious,  133, 
138;  as  Unit-universal,  133,  193; 
Aristotle's  theory,  157-162,  171  ; 
objectively  real  in  space  and  time, 
173;  determines  the  concept,  195; 
law  of,  210;  in  rational  regress, 
II,  3  ;  conditions  thought,  14  ff. ; 
and  kind,  39 ;  and  relations,  real, 
together,  148,  238  ff. 


Thing  in  itself  (Ding  an  sich), 
Cohen  on,  I,  41  ;  Kantian,  122 
note,  208  (cf.  II,  12) ;  relation  to 
negation,  129  ff . ;  as  "I  in  the 
We,"  186;  essence,  187  ff . ;  He- 
gel's substitute,  264 ;  the  real,  267 
ff. ;  in  rationalism,  II,  10 ;  is  the 
object,  12  note,  16,41  ;  in  Kantian 
deduction,  17  ff.,  145  ff. ;  the  syl- 
logism as,  22,  27  ;  Kant  on,  23  ; 
is  both  individual  and  universal, 
39  ;  in  agnosticism,  78  ff. ;  the  I 
as,  108 ;  and  the  unknowable, 
146-1.')0,  171;  relation  to  experi- 
ence, 223  ;  states  of  consciousness 
as,  237  ;  constitution  of,  239,  240; 
summary,  245. 

Thou;;ht,  relation  to  Being,  I,  1, 
38  ff.,  59  ff.,  76,  107  (cf.  II,  45), 
see  also  Apriori  of  Being;  sub- 
jective, 12;  in  modern  philosophy, 
64  ff.,  91,  see  also  Pure  thought; 
when  true,  87,  111;  relation  to 
knowledge,  87, 107,  see  alsoKuowl- 
edge  ;  relation  to  whole  self,  117  ; 
Hegelian  theory,  120  note  ;  nega- 
tion as  function  of,  130  note; 
f  rounded  in  eternity  and  Being, 
1,  2  ff. ;  derivation,  7  ff.;  relation 
to  necessity,  13  ff .,  39  ff. ;  groun<l- 
form  of,  14;  syllogism  of,  36  ff., 
123  ff.,  see  Syllogism  ;  spontaneity 
of,  43  ;  and  IJeing  in  the  Absolute 
Self,  45 ;  necessary  method  of,  59  ; 
Spinoza's  theory  examined,  98 ; 
teleological,  99 ;  in  world-process, 
105 ;  in  action,  106 ;  Hegel  on,  in 
absolute  idealism,  108  ff. ;  as  form, 
114;  as  personality,  118;  laws, 
180  ;  equation  with  existence,  244 ; 
forms  of,  245  ;  image  and  notion 
in,  252  ;  see  Apriori  of.  Conscious- 
ness, Mind  and  Reason. 

Time,  as  mere  sequence,  I,  52  ;  and 
eternity,  II,  2;  space  and,  see 
Space. 

Torquemada,  II,  265. 

Transcendence,  I,  14,  67,  109;  II, 
83  ff. 

Transcendentalism,  II,  209, 266, 290. 

Transference,  Kantian  theory,  I, 
218  ff. ;  Fichte's,  244  ff. ;  Hegel's 
279  ff. 

Transition  to  the  external  world  and 
the  We,  II,  292;  see  the  I,  also 
the  We. 


374 


INDEX 


Treinlelenburg,  I,  36,  290;  11,  182 
note,  200,  208  uote  ;  on  differences 
of  systems,  224. 

Trichotomy,  of  Beingj,  II,  237-250 ; 
of  perception,  250-259;  of  exist- 
ence, knowledge  and  praxis,  297. 

True  and  tiie  Good,  the,  see  Truth. 

Truth,  rational  ground  of,  I,  4,  59 ; 
intrinsic,  6,  68,  80  note ;  Augus- 
tine on,  82  note ;  existent  knowl- 
edge Jis  test  of,  85 ;  relation  to 
concept  and  intuition,  86  note  ;  to 
concept  and  object,  87  note,  108, 
124;  in  the  syllogism,  II,  16,27, 
31  ;  formal,  36 ;  material,  37  ;  and 
agnosticism,  78  ;  and  the  Goo<l, 
192,  261,  290;  Apriori  of,  247, 
270;  empirical  vs.  rational,  260; 
relation  to  Beauty  and  Uight,  261 ; 
see  Knowledge. 

Ueiierwecj,  II,  237  note,  244  note. 

Unconditioned,  the,  I,  51,  63  ;  II,  3 
ff. ;  Spencer's  theory  criticised, 
10,  73;  form  of  existence,  36; 
relations,  155-162,  170;  see  Con- 
dition. 

Unconsciousness,  I,  16,  133-143. 

Undcmonstrable,  I,  16-22. 

Understanding,  and  sensibility,  I, 
30,  141,  177,  2aJ-209;  II,  16  ff .  ; 
in  Kantian  doctrine,  I,  65,  102 
uote ;  a  priori,  98 ;  and  a.ssocia- 
tion,  II,  9;  nature  of,  16-.33,  50- 
58,  130,  158,  191-202,  249;  per- 
cej)tive,  129,  248  ff . ;  as  function 
of  intelligence,  255  ff. 

Undistributed  middle,  II,  34. 

Unessential,  the,  I,  172-174. 

Unhappiness,  II,  283. 

Uni«pieness,  I,  36,  179,  200  note, 
254  ;  II,  289,  294. 

Unit-(ibject,  I,  39. 

Unit-universal,  the  I  as,  I,  117-122; 
the  object  as,  123-126;  double 
constitution,  175;  condition  of 
knowledge,  185 ;  in  space  and 
time,  193;  and  ])ercopt-concept, 
197-201  ;  and  essence,  202 ;  e.\- 
istence  and  knowledge  as,  206-209; 
law  of,  210-213,  267  ;  in  the  svllo- 
gism,  II,  3  ff.,  14,  28,  .53  ff.,'l28, 
229;  relation  to  necessity,  16, 
41,  59  ;  absolute,  36  ;  presupposed 
by  Spencer,  75 ;  in  evolution,  92 
£f . ;    tabular    summary,    144;    in 


immanent  relations,  149  ff. ;  func- 
tions of,  157;  in  ethical  relatitins, 
161  £f. ;  summaty  oi  relationship.^, 
229,  240  ff.;  in  ontological  rela- 
tions, 237  ;  in  scientilic  nielhod, 
253  ;  in  ethical  relations,  268  ;  the 
I  as,  295. 

Units,  relation  to  kinds  and  particu- 
lars, I,  3S  ft",,  101,  178;  to  univer- 
sals,  57,  see  Individuals,  also  Unit- 
universal ;  of  perception,  II,  5, 
248;  jis  monads,  100;  of  energy, 
117  ;  evolution  of,  121  ff. 

Unity,  and  universulity  in  IJeiug,  I, 
108;  of  the  universe^.  II,  3,  240; 
and  a.s.<ociation  of  ide;is,  9 ;  see 
Apperception,  the  1,  also  Unit- 
universal. 

Universal,    relation    to    individuals 
and  particulars,  I,  38,  66,  76,  94, 
104    note,     145,     177;     .^cienlilic 
tlieory,  .54,   77,   120  note,   145  ff., 
175;   relation   to   the   individual, 
54  ff. ;  nature,  of,  57 ;  relation  to 
empirical  self,  93-96;  to  rational 
self,  96  ;    to    (*on.seiou.sn(>.s.s     102 
note;  unscientific  theory,  105;  as 
origin  of  the  individual,  i  15  ;  "  the 
I"  as  real,   117;    concrete,   119; 
rationalistic    theory,    142;     Aris- 
totelian, 145,1.50-170;   inlierence 
in,  145,  193,  266-268;  relation  to 
jwcidents,     157-206;     Zelhr    on 
Plato's  theory,  151,  167  ;  summary 
of  Aristotelian  theory,  157,  179; 
Antisthene.s'     theory'      1 6.5-1 70; 
theories  compared,   171   ff . ;  rela- 
tion to  unit,  176,  .see  I'nit-univer- 
Bal ;  to  property,  1 78 ;  to  essence, 
188;    ground-principle    of    scien- 
tific theory,  193,  204  ff. ;  Ilegel's 
theory,  265  ff. ;  extension  and  in- 
tension of,  269 ;  in  the  syllogism, 
II,  4;  evolution  of,  121^.;  sul>- 
8umi)tion    of    particulars    under, 
243. 
Universalism,  1, 15, 16  ;  see  Healism. 
Universality,  as  goal  of  science,  I, 
1  ;  basis,    6,    14;  of  content  and 
ground,   11;    subjective,   12;    ol)- 
jtHjtive,  15;  relation  to  individuals, 
39,  .54,  269  ff.  ;  ah.solute.  59-61  ; 
of    self-consciousness,     106    note, 
109;  in  ohjoct  of  knowledge.  107; 
through    hereility,    :i07 ;    relation 
to  necessity,   11,  39  ff.,  ultimate. 


INDEX 


375 


1 5.*)  ff. ;  relation  to  genera  and 
species,  238 ;  units  and,  248 ;  of 
the  world,  294  ;  see  Rationality, 
also  Validity. 

Universe  (see  World),  logical  divi- 
sion of,  I,  128  ff. ;  process  of,  II, 
2,  159,  see  Evolution  ;  unity  of,  3, 
240;  in  the  syllogism,  36;  as  or- 
ganism, 33  ff.,  94,  see  ( )rganism  ; 
as  living,  66,  249;  as  Alisolute 
Knower,  159;  summary,  239,  240  ; 
endlessly  syllogistic,  243 ;  moral 
equilibrium  of,  278  ;  ideal  of,  290. 

L'nkn(>vval>le,  reality,  1,  210 ;  of  Spen- 
cer, 11,73  ff.;  criticism,  82  ff.,  98, 123; 
and  the  knowable,  146-1.55,  235. 

Unlikenes.s,  I,  133,  138;  II,  75,  270. 

T^noriglnated  relations,  II,  155-170. 

Utilitarianism,  II,  265-267. 

Validity,  I,  3,  6,  13-15,  22;  cri- 
terion of,  66-68  ;  ground,  59,  62, 
85;  of  human  knowledge,  187, 
193  ff. ;  Kantian  theory,  220-224  ; 
of  the  syllogism,  II,  4  ff.,  29-,38,  54, 
179  ff. ;  of  formal  logic,  238;  of 
induction,  254. 

Variable  relations,  II,  155-162. 

Variation,  see  Darwin. 

Verifieati<m,  II,  37,  .59,  2.54,  2.58. 

Virchow,  I,  274. 

Virtue,  II,  70,  162-174;  is  the  ethical 
.syllogism,  267  ;  in  absolute  logic, 
285. 

Visual  perception,  II,  251. 

Volition,  see  Will. 

Von  Ilartmann,  II,  28. 

WAi.LArE,  A.  1^,  I,  1.59,  189  note. 

Wallace,  E<lwin,  I,  150  note. 

Wallace,  Wm.,  on  Hegel's  Propii- 
(iptitik;  I,  265  note. 

Washington,  Geo.,  I,  200. 

Wjisson,  I).  A.,  II,  272  note. 

Way  Out  of  Agnosticism,  The,  I, 
120  note,  307. 

We,  the,  relation  to  "the  I,"  I,  15, 
110-113;  as  origin  of  "the  I," 
115  ff.,  126,  1.33,  255;  "Each  of 
the  We,"  119,  121,  125;  ultimate 
origin  of,  127  note;  contains  anti- 
thesis, 133;  and  Not- We,  139; 
table  of  antitheses,  142 :  conclu- 
sions which  follow,  144;  relation 
to  external  world,  146-148;  ♦*  I  in 
the  We"  as  nnitruniversal,  186, 


275 ;  transition  from  "  the  1  "  in 
(.lerman  idealism,  213  ff. ;  Kantian 
theory,  215  ff . ;  Fichte's  .sever- 
ance from  "the  I,"  255 ;  Hegel's 
theory,  261  ff . ;  identical  with 
Fichte's,  278,  see  llcgel;  in  the 
syllogism,  II,  23,  39,  57  ;  in  the 
Ahsoluto,  91  ;  in  aitsolute  logic, 
2.50;  ethiculily  of,  267  ff . ;  self- 
sovereignty  <>f,  278;  in  absolute 
.syllogism,  288  ff. ;  origin  of  '*  the 
I  "  through,  290-295. 
What  of  the  object,  the,  II,  223, 251, 


25/. 


Whole,  relation  to  units,  1,  38;  to 
parts,  52  ;  Aristotle's  theory,  54, 
163;  of  thought,  feeling  and  will, 
117;  relation  to  universals,  119, 
see  Universals;  in  the  syllogism, 
II,  32  ;  relation  to  organism,  93. 

Will,  I,  3,  12,  46,  49;  relation  to 
whole  self,  117;  to  machine  and 
personality,  1 1,  8.^)  ff.,  100  ;  Hegel's 
theory  discussed,  108  nole,  in  the 
universe,  149;  in  ethics,  16.3-174; 
relation  to  a  primi  intellect,  240  ; 
to  demonstration,  259;  the  "good 
will,"  261,  267;  freechnn  of,  262 
ff. ;  as  ethical  energy,  271,  286; 
world-will,  279 ;  human  and  ab- 
solute, 290. 

Williams,  H.  S.,  II,  53  note. 

Windelhand,  on  history  of  philoso- 
phy, I,  69-73;  on  presupposition- 
less  beginning,  80  n<)to;  on  Augus- 
tine, 82  note;  on  Descartes,  SS 
note;  on  Kant's  Vcrhiudanqy  11, 
140. 

Wisdom,  etliical,  II,  265. 

W..rk,  II,  122. 

World,  ])rol»lem  of  inner  and  outer, 
I,  64,  142-148  (cf.  II.  292) ;  knowl 
edge  of  inner  and  outer,  213  ff.  ; 
as  machine,   II,  2,  60,  89,  77,  H9, 
102;  and   mind.   59,  60,  96,   \p  \ 
world-process,  65-70;  jls  organism 
and    person,    89,   239 ;    substance 
and  process,  105;  ground  of  world- 
proee.ss,    155   ff . ;    objcu'tive   infer- 
ence of,  124-128;  an<!  knowledge, 
159;   freedom    and    necessity   in, 
241  ;  organi<-  and  inorganic,  243  ; 
outer,  in   perception,   251  ;  world- 
will  and    intelle<t,  279;    absolute 
.syllogism    of,   288;    identity   and 
difference  of  internal  and  exti'r- 


In 


374 


INDEX 


INDEX 


375 


I 


ili 


Trendelenburg,  I,  36,  290;  II,  182 
note,  200, 208  note  ;  on  differences 
of  systems,  224. 

Trichotomy,  of  Being,  II,  237-250 ; 
of  perception,  250-259;  of  exist- 
ence, knowledge  and  praxis,  297. 

True  and  the  Good,  the,  see  Truth. 

Truth,  rational  ground  of,  I,  4,  59 ; 
intrinsic,  6,  68,  80  note ;  Augus- 
tine on,  82  note ;  existent  knowl- 
edge SIS  test  of,  85  ;  relation  to 
concept  and  intuition,  86  note  ;  to 
concept  and  oljject,  87  note,  108, 
124;  in  the  syllogism,  II,  16,27, 
31  ;  formal,  36 ;  material,  37  ;  and 
agnosticism,  78  ;  and  the  Good, 
192,  261,  290;  Apriori  of,  247, 
270;  empirical  vs.  rational,  260; 
relation  to  Beauty  and  liight,  261 ; 
see  Knowledge. 

Uehkrweg,  II,  237  note,  244  note. 

Unconditioned,  the,  I,  51,  63  ;  II,  3 
ff. ;  Spencer's  theory  criticised, 
10,  73;  form  of  existence,  36; 
relations,  155-162,  170;  see  Con- 
dition. 

Unconsciousness,  I,  16,  133-143. 

Undcmonstrable,  I,  16-22. 

Understanding,  and  sensibility,  I, 
30,  141,  177,  20.'J-209;  II,  16  ff.  ; 
in  Kantian  doctrine,  I,  65,  102 
note ;  a  priori^  98 ;  and  a.Hsocia- 
tion,  11,9;  nature  of,  16-33,  50- 
58,  130,  158,  191-202,  249;  per- 
ceptive, 129,  248  ff. ;  as  function 
of  intelligence,  255  ff. 

Undistributed  mitUlle,  II,  34. 

Unessential,  the,  I,  172-174. 

Unhappiness,  II,  283. 

Uniqueness,  I,  36,  179,  200  note, 
254  ;  II,  289,  294. 

Unit-object,  I,  39. 

Unit-universal,  the  I  a.s,  I,  117-122  ; 
the  object  as,  123-126;  double 
constitution,  175;  condition  of 
knowledge,  185;  in  sj>ace  and 
time,  193;  anti  ])ercept-concept, 
197-201  ;  and  essence,  202 ;  ex- 
istence and  knowledge  as,  206-209; 
law  of,  210-213,  267  ;  in  the  svllo- 
gism,  II,  3  ff.,  14,  28,  .53  ff.,*128, 
229 ;  relation  to  necessity,  1 6, 
41,  59  ;  absolute,  36  ;  presupposed 
Mf  Spencer,  75;  in  evolution,  92 
u. ;    tabular    summary,    144 ;    in 


immanent  relations,  149  ff. ;  func- 
tions of,  157;  ill  ethical  relations, 
161  ff . ;  summary  of  rulati«)iiship.s, 
229,  240  ff.;  in  ontological  rela- 
tions, 237 ;  in  scientilic  meth«)d, 
253  ;  in  ethical  relutioiis,  268  ;  the 
I  as,  295. 
Units,  relation  to  kinds  and  particu- 
lars, I,  3S  ff.,  101,  178;  to  nniver- 
sals,  57,  see  Individuals,  also  Tnit- 
uuivcrsal ;  of  perception,  II,  5, 
248;  as  monads,  100;  of  energy, 
117  ;  evolution  of,  121  ff. 

Unity,  and  universality  in  IJeing,  I, 
108;  of  the  universe,  II,  3,  240; 
and  association  of  idejis,  9  ;  8(*e 
A]>perc»'ntion,  the  1,  also  Unit- 
universal. 

Universal,  relation  to  individuals 
and  particulars,  I,  38,  66,  76,  94, 
104  note,  14.5,  177;  .snenlilic 
theory,  .54,  77,  120  note,  145  ff., 
175;  relation  to  the  iniiividuail, 
54  ff. ;  nature,  of,  57 ;  relation  to 
empirical  s(rlf,  93-96;  to  rational 
self,  96  ;  to  con.sciousne.ss,  102 
note;  unscientific  tlie<»ry,  1()5;  :us 
origin  ofthc  individual,  i  15  ;  "  the 
I"  as  real,  117;  concrete,  119; 
rationalistic  theory,  142;  Aris- 
totelian, 145,  1.50-170;  inherence 
in,  145,  193,  266-268;  relation  to 
accidents,  157-206;  Zeller  on 
Plato's  theory,  151,  167;  summary 
of  Aristotelian  theory,  157,  179; 
Antisthenes'  theory'  1 6.5-1 70; 
theories  comjiared,  171  ff . ;  rela- 
tion to  unit,  176,  see  Tnit-univer- 
sal ;  to  property,  178;  to  essence, 
188;  ground-principle  of  scien- 
tific theory,  193,  204  ff. ;  Hegel's 
theory,  265  ff. ;  extension  and  in- 
tension of,  269 ;  in  the  syllogism, 
II,  4;  evolution  of,  121  ff.;  .sul)- 
sumption  of  particulars  under, 
243. 

Universalism,  1, 15, 16  ;  see  Kealism. 

Universality,  as  goal  of  science,  I, 
1  ;  basis,  6,  14;  of  content  and 
ground,  11;  subjective,  12;  ol>- 
jective,  15 ;  relation  to  individuals, 
39,  .54,  269  ff.  ;  ah.solute.  59-61  ; 
of  self-c<»nsciou.sne.<s,  106  note, 
109;  in  object  of  knowlcilgi*.  107  ; 
through  heredity,  '207 ;  relation 
to  necessity,  11,  39  ff.,  ultimate. 


1 55  ff. ;  relation  to  genera  and 
R{)ecies,  238 ;  units  and,  248 ;  of 
the  world,  294 ;  see  Rationality, 
also  Validity. 

Universe  (see  World),  logical  divi- 
sion of,  I,  128  ff. ;  j)rocess  of,  II, 
2,  1.59,  see  Evolution  ;  unity  of,  3, 
240;  in  the  .syllogism,  36;  as  or- 
gani.sm,  33  ff.,  94,  see  Organism; 
as  living,  66,  249 ;  as  Absolute 
Knower,  159  ;  summary,  239,  240  ; 
endlessly  syllogistic,  243 ;  moral 
equilibrium  of,  278  ;  ideal  of,  290. 

Unknowalfle,  reality,  I,  210 ;  of  Sjien- 
cer.II, 73 ff .;  criticism, 82 ff., 98, 1 23; 
and  the  knowable,  146-155,  235. 

Unlikeness,  I,  133,  138;  11,  75,  270. 

Unoriginated  relations,  II,  155-170. 

Utilitarianism,  II,  26.5-267. 

Validity,  I,  3,  6,  13-15,  22;  cri- 
terion of,  66-68  ;  ground,  59,  62, 
85;  of  human  knowledge,  187, 
193  ff. ;  Kantian  theory,  220-224; 
of  the  syllogism,  11,4  ff.,  29-38,  54, 
179  ff. ;  of  formal  logic,  238;  of 
induction,  254. 

Variable  relations,  II,  155-162. 

Variation,  see  Darwin. 

Verifieation,  II,  37,  59,  2.54,  258. 

Virchow,  I,  274. 

Virtue,  1 1, 70,  1 62-1 74 ;  is  the  ethical 
svllogism,  267 ;  in  absolute  logic, 
285. 

Visual  |)erception,  II,  251. 

Volition,  see  Will. 

Von  Ilartmann,  II,  28. 

Wai.lack,  a.  T?.,  I,  1.59,  189  note. 

Wallace,  Edwin,  I,  150  note. 

Wallace,  Wm.,  on  Hegel's  Propd- 
(Ifutih,  I,  265  note. 

Washington,  Geo.,  I,  200. 

Wjisson,  I).  A.,  II,  272  note. 

Way  Out  of  Agnosticism,  The,  I, 
120  note,  307. 

We,  the,  relation  to  "the  I,"  I,  15, 
110-113;  as  origin  of  "the  I," 
115  ff.,  126,  133,  255;  "Each  of 
the  We,"  119,  121,  125;  ultimate 
origin  of,  127  note;  contains  anti- 
thesis, 133;  and  Not- We,  139; 
table  of  antitheses,  142 ;  conclu- 
sions which  follow,  144;  relation 
to  external  world,  146-148;  **  I  in 
the  We"  as  unit^universal,  186, 


275 ;  transition  from  "  the  T  "  in 
German  idealism,  213  ff.  ;  Kantian 
theory,  215  ff . ;  Fichte's  sever- 
ance from  "the  I,"  255 ;  Hegel's 
theory,  261  if. ;  itienf  ic;il  with 
Fichte's,  278,  see  Hegel;  in  the 
syllogism,  II,  23,  39,  57  ;  in  the 
Absolute,  91  ;  in  absolute  logic, 
2.50;  ethicality  of,  267  ff . ;  s<'lf- 
sovereignty  oV,  278;  in  absolute 
syllogism,* 288  ff. ;  origin  of  "the 
1  "  through,  290-295. 

What  of  the  object,  the,  II,  223, 251, 
257. 

Whole,  relation  to  units,  1,  38  ;  to 
])arts,  52  ;  Aristotle's  theory,  54, 
163;  of  thought,  feeling  and  will, 
117;  relation  to  nniversals,  119, 
see  ITniver.^als ;  in  the  svlloirisin, 
II,  32  ;  relation  to  organism,  93. 

Will,  I,  3,  12,  46,  49;  relation  to 
whole  self,  117;  to  machine  and 
personality,  1 1,  8.5  ff.,  100  ;  Hegel's 
theory  discnsse<l,  108  note,  in  the 
universe,  149;  in  ethics,  ir>.*}-l74; 
relation  to  a  jniuri  intellect,  240  ; 
to  demonstration,  259;  \\w  "  goiul 
will,"  261,  267;  freedom  of,  262 
ff . ;  as  ethical  energy,  271,  286; 
world-will,  279 ;  human  and  ab- 
solute, 290. 

Williams,  II.  R.,  II,  53  note. 

WindelbaiMl,  on   history  of  pliilo.so- 

{>hy,  I,  69-73 ;  on  presn])position- 
ess  beginning,  80  note ;  on  Angus- 
tine,  82  note;  on  I)(!scartes,  88 
note;  on  Kant's  Vcrhiudung^  II, 
140. 

Wisdom,  ethical,  II,  265. 

Work,  11,  122. 

World,  j>roblem  of  inner  and  ontor, 
I,  64,  142-148  (cf.  II.  292) ;  knowl 
edge  of  inner  and  outer,  213  ff. ; 
as   machine,   II,  2,  66,  89,  77,  89, 
102;  and    mind.   59,   6(»,  96,   lL'3; 
world-process,  65-70;  jLsor;:anism 
and   jK^rson,    89,    239 ;    substance 
an<l  proeess,  105  ;  ground  of  world- 
proee.ss,    155  ff . ;    objective   infer- 
ence of,  124-128;  aiid  knowledge, 
159;   freedom    and    necessity   in, 
241  ;  organie  and   inorganic,  243  ; 
outer,  in   jjercepliou,   251  ;  worbl- 
will  and    intfdlect,  279;    absolute 
syllogisn)    of,   288;    identity    and 
difference  of  internal  and  exter- 


376 


INDEX 


nal,  293,  308;  the  one  world  as 

All-Person,  294. 
World-consciousness,  I,  67  ;  Energy 

and  Reason,  II,  156. 
Wron<?,  II,    163-165,  167,  263-267, 

270-273,  278-285. 

Xknophanes,  I,  164. 

Yes,  Hegel's  reconciling,  I,  299-304, 
312,  315. 

Zeller,  on  Plato's  theory  of  caus- 
ality, I,  53  note ;  on  judgment,  86 


note ;  on  Aristotle's  theory  of  im- 
mediate knowledge,  122  note;  on 
A  and  Not- A,  128  note;  on  Aris- 
totle's theory  of  universals,  150  ff., 
171,  262,  263;  on  Plato's  system, 
166,  263  ;  ou  Platonic  theory  of 
concepts,  151,  166;  on  Aristotle's 
theory  of  "the  1,"  154;  on  his 
theory  of  perception,  1 62 ;  on 
Sokrates,  164  note;  on  Plato  and 
Antisthenes,  165  note ;  on  the 
Befjriff,  192  note. 

Zeno,  I,  164. 

Zero,  absolute,  I,  297  ;  II,  252,  291. 


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